After America

A few moments later he and Jed were secure behind the door of a suite containing a bed that recently had been stripped of its linen and presumably its occupant.

"Put him on speaker," Kip said.

"Mister President, are you sure about…"

"Go on, Jed. I doubt anyone could hear us, and even if they could, this hospital is full of soldiers. They know better than you or I what's happening in New York. Go on."

The chief of staff did as he was told but dropped the volume a few notches.

"Colonel Ki

"Don't worry about that," Kipper said, raising his voice to be heard over Jed. "Just tell us what you've got, Colonel."

Ki

"Mister President, we haven't obtained any hard human data yet-"

"You mean you haven't captured any of our mystery guys, is that right, Colonel?" Jed asked.

"No, sir," came the answer, crackling through the airwaves. "We've come close once or twice. There are definitely a group of hostiles active in New York, coordinating a disparate group of independent actors, but whenever we've come close to capturing one of them, they've killed themselves."

"What?" Kip said.

"They killed themselves, Mister President. Sometimes self-detonated a bomb belt-type device, sometimes a grenade. We've taken some significant casualties because of that. Once or twice, when that option wasn't available, they simply put a bullet in their own heads. One guy cut his own throat out. Hard core, sir. These guys do not want to be captured."

Kipper exchanged a look with Jed. A "what-the-fuck" look, his wife would have called it.

"So you haven't caught any alive, Colonel," he continued. "But the fact you've called means you have something more than a bunch of corpses to go on."

"Yes, sir. We have managed to lay hands on quite a few of the pirates now. Mostly low-level muscle. And they're much happier to talk once they get a meal and some drink in them."

Kipper was surprised. He'd expected that modern interrogation techniques would run more to water torture and car batteries. He'd reluctantly authorized such extreme measures in the Declared Zones over a year ago, but if Colonel Ki

"The enemy combatants we have secured," said Ki

It was Jed Culver who spoke this time. "Did you say outside of New York, Colonel? They were offering to carve up turf outside Manhattan?"

"Not just Manhattan, Mister Culver. All up and down the eastern seaboard."

"How?" Kipper asked.

"Don't know that yet, Mister President," came the disembodied reply. "None of our prisoners are what you'd call decision makers. A lot of what they're telling us is circulating as rumor on the other side. But the rumors all lock in together. They all sound the same. There is an operator out here who's managed to get these guys working together, most of them, anyway. Apparently, the Eastern European gangs weren't having any part of it. They're sitting this out."

Kipper leaned in closer, feeling suddenly as if he really should be taking the security of the call more seriously.

"And the jihadi angle, Colonel. Any word there?"

Ki

"I'm sorry, Colonel," Jed said. "Could you repeat. It's a bad co

When Ki

"Some of the prisoners have confirmed that the newcomers have described themselves as fedayeen. There seems to be about four or five groups of them, identifiable by the different color scarves they wear. Their common language is Arabic, but then, a lot of the North African pirates speak that, too. They're devout. They don't miss prayer, but again, some of our pirate captives are no different. The main thing is, Mister President, all of our captives say that these new guys have been acting as leaders or advisers for the pirate gangs during this recent fighting. They are ru

"Booby traps?" Kipper said.

"Yes, sir. That's the really a

"Do we have any idea who's ru

"Nothing concrete, sir. There is a leadership cadre that my prisoners are aware of, but they don't have names or any kind of actionable information. If we could just grab up one of these scarf-wearing motherfuckers…"

Kipper could hear the intense frustration in Ki

"Excuse me, Mister President, I didn't…"

"Don't sweat it, Colonel," said Kipper. "I feel the same way. Like we've been hit by some bastard from out of nowhere. I'm not going to waste my breath telling you we need to lay hands on one of these characters. I'm sure you're moving heaven and earth to do so."

"Thank you, Mister President. You are correct about that, sir."

Kipper stretched his neck, which cracked uncomfortably. The room swam around him, and he reached for the bed head to steady himself. Jed looked worried and tried to lend a hand, but Kipper shook his head and held up the arm from which the medical staff had taken blood. He was just suffering from the aftereffects of losing a pint.

"Colonel, I have to go now," Kip said. "I'm about to go visit some of your men and women in the hospital here. I broke off from my visit to talk to you."

"Do what you can for them, Mister President," said Ki

"I'm sure. You stay on it, Colonel. And call me whenever you've got anything you think I might want to know."

"Yes, sir, Mister President. Mister Culver. Ki

The co

"We'd best get on with the tour," Kip said. "Can't keep people waiting."

Culver helped him stand up, and Kip had to wonder how the man was coping with his own reaction to having donated blood. It didn't seem to bother him nearly as much.

"There'll be a formal intelligence brief coming through on this within an hour or so," Culver said. "I'll get it to you as soon as possible. Get NIA working on it with the Euroweenies. And Echelon Group with the Brits. See if they've picked up anything in the chatter."

"Okay."

They emerged from the room to find their escort group standing off a short distance down the corridor, presumably to give them some privacy. As they returned to the party for the short walk to the recovery ward, the first buses full of blood donors from the settler camp pulled into the car park. Kipper watched through a big picture window as the new Americans spilled out onto the tarmac, chattering and gri