Terror At Dawn

Kyle stumbled and fell forward, keeping his hold on his rifle. He hit the ground, his finger inside the trigger guard, and the gun discharged.

“Three, four, five.”

Kyle had just a split second to realize how fatal his error was before the man opened fire.

“Hold fire!” the voice shouted, commanding. “Fall back, regroup.” The men pulled back, and the man who’d shouted advanced to check Kyle’s body. “Get some windows open and get this area cleared out.” He turned to other men. “The computer — don’t touch it. The rest of the team is on its way in.”

Suddenly, the lace curtains framing the front window burst into flames. The man swore, and another darted over to put it out. But the flames consumed the thin fabric and, fanned by the breeze from the open windows, jumped to the couch, then the carpet and the rest of the furniture. Before they could even begin to control it, the room was an inferno.

“Pull back!”

They retreated, swearing, not entirely sure who’d given the order, but recognizing the futility of trying to fight the fire. There was no chance that the local rural fire department could deal with this, not as quickly as it was spreading.

Greenfield was the last man out of the building. He staggered, coughing up the last of the tear gas as he crouched on the ground. In his brief glimpse of the interior of the house, Greenfield had seen nothing to confirm the reports that this man was a renegade leader. Nothing at all.

I told them not to do it this way, not to plan a commando-type strike, not the kind that had gone wrong so often enough in the past. But no — somebody at the top had decided that this was going to be a demonstration, that this would be the one arrest that made the rest of them sit up and take notice.

The noise increased as the flames consumed the structure. But even over the roar of the fire, Greenfield could hear the thin screams start from the basement.

Four hundred yards away, Special Agent A. J. Bratton watched the fire race out of control through the small house. He was too far away to hear the screams himself, but his directional microphone aimed at the scene picked up the shouts of the agents trying to brave the flames and the anguish in Greenfield’s voice in the intercepted phone calls demanding local firefighting assistance. Bratton stayed in position until he was certain he understood what had happened, then moved silently through the trees and brush to clear the area. Five minutes later, there was no trace of his extended surveillance on the Smart house.

There couldn’t be. After all, the CIA had no jurisdiction inside the United States. There was no reason for Bratton or the CIA to even be involved.

Yet.

EIGHT

The White House

0800 local (GMT -5)

The President kept his handwritten scribbles jotted down on election night in the top left-hand drawer of his desk. Although they were barely legible, the increasing disorganization reflecting his state of mind that night, he could still recite every number by heart. Looking at each stroke of the pencil, he relived his feelings of the moment when that state’s electoral votes were tallied.

His mood swings were reflected in the scribbles: the broad, bold, and exuberant tally of California’s electoral votes, the dejected abbreviations trailing off as North Dakota and Idaho went to his opponent. And then, the state that had sent him over the edge to victory — Texas — written in almost incomprehensible scrawls of large letters suitable to the size of the state. Over and over again he had written the name, waiting for the number, and finally putting a big circle around it at the very moment Dan Rather announced the projected results.

It had all been over then. Sure, the projected results could have been wrong, but they weren’t usually. Ever since the Bush-Gore debacle, the networks had been exceedingly cautious about announcing any information that might keep last-minute voters away from the polls.

Texas. Who would have thought? They were joking that TX was just my shorthand for tax, and I guess that’s not going to be far from the truth.

The cost of increased domestic security was mounting daily. Even his Homeland Defense Secretary, confident though he might be in public, was worried. Maintaining security in an open society was virtually impossible, and over the last few years they had begun to realize the full extent of the problem. Sure, there had been a decent start made on the problem, but he could not escape the feeling it was more for show than effect.

Every day, he glanced at the scribbles, letting them remind him of those moments when he had been certain he would not be reelected, of the odd, unsettling feeling that in just a few hours he might become a lame-duck President, and just months after that an ordinary, mortal civilian, deprived of all the trappings of power and perks that came with this office.

But that fate had been averted, and here he was, a better President than he’d been last term. He felt an increased freedom in his choices, free from the constraints of considering what effect his actions might have on public opinion, free to do what he thought best for the country regardless of public opinion and considerations of reelection.

There had been a time not so many months ago when he’d fallen into that trap, of contemplating the political fallout from his decisions. That he’d let himself be caught up in that chafed even now.

“Mr. President?” His Chief of Staff stood at the door, holding another scrap of paper. Were all great decisions made in this way, all important news scribbled notes on the backs of envelopes or on memo pads?

“Yes, Jim?”

“There’s been an incident, sir. The FBI, conducting a takedown at Bull Run in Idaho. Four fatalities, Mr. President. A man, his wife, and two children.”

“They shot children?” A chill swept through him. The worst scenario possible — dead children, shot by federal agents.

But looking at his Chief of Staff’s face, he knew he was wrong. Knew he was wrong and that the truth would be even worse.

“No, sir. The tear-gas canisters — there was a fire, sir. The woman and the children were hiding in the basement and were trapped. They — it will take some time to identify the bodies, but we’re pretty certain who they are. There’s not much left.”

A groan escaped his lips involuntarily. Children, burning. “How old?”

“Eight and four.”

The President slumped back in his chair. The sheer insanity and tragedy of it overwhelmed him. Children, dead in a fire. A fire caused by his agents.

“There’s more, sir,” his Chief of Staff continued doggedly. “The agents weren’t in the house long, just long enough to seize his computer and a few other items before the fire broke out. But from what they’ve been able to determine so far, sir, he wasn’t the man they were looking for.”

“What!” The President slammed his hands down on his desk, now outraged. “We killed children and it’s not even the right man?”

The Chief of Staff stood silent. One of his roles in the Administration was to absorb any initial flack, calming the President down so that he could decide what his public move would be. He knew that none of what would follow was directed at him.

“Get Bratton over here,” the President shouted. “I want to see that son of a bitch standing tall in front of my desk within the next ten minutes. Ten minutes, do you hear? Ten minutes or I’ll have his head!”

“Ten minutes, sir.” The Chief of Staff left and closed the door quietly behind him.

He would give it five minutes, he decided, before he went back into the Oval Office. A few moments for the President to collect his thoughts and decide what his next move would be. Bratton was still on his way back from Idaho, but the President wouldn’t want to hear that. Best to wait until he calmed down just a bit.

In the Oval Office, the President buried his face in his hands. He had three children of his own, and the