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The woman looked past the camera, glaring defiantly at some offscreen presence, as if to say, Are you satisfied? Then the image froze and a superimposed window appeared, giving the viewer the choice to replay the video or to share it with a friend.
President Diggs jabbed his finger toward the monitor. “I want that taken down now before the media gets hold of this. Get those YouTube sonsuvbitches to take that down.”
“It’s too late, sir.” Hammershaw looked up from his cell phone, then turned the screen toward the president to illustrate his point. “At least a dozen news agencies are already ru
“Eight a.m. local time tomorrow. How long does that give us?”
Hammershaw looked expectantly at a representative of the CIA.
“Twenty-three hours, sixteen minutes.”
Diggs exhaled sharply, but his anger burned off quickly, giving way to confusion. “I don’t understand . . . Tillman Davis knows better than anyone that our national policy is never to negotiate with terrorists. He knows damn well we’ll never agree to what he’s asking. So what the hell is he thinking?”
Diggs sca
“Whatever his endgame is, this confirms that Tillman Davis has cast his lot with the insurgency and needs to be defeated. If we don’t stop him before his deadline . . .” The president trailed off, turning inward as he realized the implications of failure. “If Abu Nasir kills those hostages, we will have no other choice except to respond with force. Their deaths would constitute nothing less than an act of war, and the American people will demand reprisal against the insurgents.”
Admiral Reed said, “As you requested, sir, the Joint Chiefs have been wargaming several scenarios with the Sultan’s military staff. There’s not a single option that uses less than an entire division of American troops.”
“A division!” Elliot Hammershaw said. “The president is talking about reprisal, Admiral, and you’re talking about a straight-up war!”
“War? That’s your word, Mr. Hammershaw,” the admiral said. “I’m just a military man giving you military—”
The president interrupted, “Bottom line is, we need to take back that rig.”
Admiral Reed spoke. “Sir, I’ve already ordered Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta to deploy. Both units can be in Mohan within ten hours, well before Tillman Davis’s deadline. But I’ll let General Ferry address the tactical specifics.”
he �€†
General Ferry, commander of SOCOM, stood. He had the tall, rail-thin frame of a competitive long-distance ru
“So how do you plan to take the rig, General?” the president said.
“Before we can give you a definitive operational assessment, we need some answers. Beyond the leverage he’s got with the hostages, what other measures has he taken to defend the rig? Does he have any antiaircraft or antiship capability? Will he use his hostages as human shields? Until we answer those questions, there is no way to predict the probability of success, or to assess how many hostages might be killed if we do succeed in reacquiring the rig.”
President Diggs was not happy with this answer. He stared at the general, waiting for something more definitive.
The tense silence was broken by Dave Posner, a young, nervous-looking CIA analyst in an ill-fitting suit, who raised his hand tentatively as he spoke. “And then there’s the weather issue, sir.”
“Weather?” the president said.
General Ferry shot Posner an irritated glance. “There’s a typhoon off the Philippines. If it hit the rig, it would obviously bottle up the rig until the storm passed.”
“Bottle up?” the president said.
Ferry explained. “Right now the seas are ru
“That seems a fairly negligible risk,” President Diggs said hopefully.
“Actually, Mr. President . . .” Posner cleared his throat. “I’ve just received an update. The typhoon appears to be heading west.” An image of Southeast Asia appeared on the big screen at the front of the Situation Room. A vast white swirl had enveloped all of the southern Philippines. It looked perilously close to a red triangle indicating the location of the Obelisk. “If it keeps turning, it might hit the Obelisk.”
Diggs felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Can you quantify that?”
“Hong Kong says there’s a sixty percent chance now.”
The president’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “How much time before it hits?”
Posner squinted briefly at his monitor. The only sound in the room was the clicking of keys on his keyboard. Finally he looked up. “If it hits?—the outlik�€†skirts of the storm could be there within four hours.”
The president turned and looked at General Ferry. “Tom? We need a Plan B here in case this storm keeps turning. Can you get your men on that rig inside of four hours?”
“There’s a Delta Force in Hawaii.”
“I take it that’s a no.”
General Ferry’s jaw clenched. “Flight time to Mohan is six hours minimum. And once the storm hits, it would severely impede their insertion.”
“Sixty percent, that’s pretty high,” the president said. “Have we got any other options?”
Ferry swallowed but didn’t answer.
“Give me options, dammit!”
Ferry looked briefly at the floor and said, “There’s a platoon of SEALs from SEAL Team One in Mohan. Sixteen men.”
“Can they take the rig in the next four hours?”
“Possibly. With enough support and the right equipment.”
“And luck,” added Admiral Reed.
The strain of the moment was starting to fray the president’s nerves. “I need that rig, General. I can’t take a chance of that storm hitting before the deadline runs out.”
It was obvious that Ferry was reluctant. The odds would be heavily stacked against such a hastily organized mission. But President Diggs had to weigh the lives of sixteen SEALs against all the lives that would be lost if this turned into an all-out war.
The yawning silence was broken by the sound of a vibrating cell phone. Elliot Hammershaw scowled as he read the number on the display window. “Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. President, but I have Senator McClatchy.”
Gideon's War and Hard Target
President Diggs’s expression darkened. He knew what...
“I’ll take it in the Oval Office.” Before heading to the door, the president turned to General Ferry and said quietly, “Do whatever you have to do to take back that rig.”
General Ferry nodded once. “I’ll give the order, sir.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT WAS ONLY AFTER their parents died that Gideon and Tillman learned that their father had gone bankrupt following a series of poor investments. They were literally left with nothing.
The day after the funeral, Uncle Earl had driven them up to the portico of their stately old family home and said, “Your aunt has asked me to bring you out here. The house and the property are all going to be sold. You can take whatever you can fit in the back of the car. Your aunt tells me that everything else will be sold. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way.”