CHAPTER 76
The mountains of North Carolina
Around the mahogany table in the secret war room in the mountains of North Carolina, the assembled principals covered the full agenda, then did it again.
Oversight of the Office of Domestic Strategy fell to five people: attorney Sam Starnes; Representative Martin Jennings, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; Representative Carter Dempsey from Michigan; Senator Tabitha Doyle of Florida; and Senator John Henry Schaffer of Virginia.
With his trademark expert efficiency and natural authority, Sam Starnes ran the meeting to chart the way forward from the Coleman Harrison murder.
I surveyed the assembled leadership. They all were sharp. Senator Doyle definitely knew her stuff. She was fluent in counterterrorism and discussed intelligence issues as easily as she might order a gin and tonic.
Senator Schaffer was a stickler for details.
He was an elderly Virginian who wore a bow tie, spoke with a distinctive Southern accent, and made clear that his word was his bond.
Whereas he was prone to question just about everything—a no-before-yes man—he was by his own admission committed to pulling terrorists “out from the attic and under the rug.”
Congressman Jennings I knew from Team Rhino’s recent mission in Iraq. He was solid and needed no further study.
Congressman Dempsey was the puzzle of the five. An Independent from Michigan, he bounced between issues as the wind blew. He talked way too much for my taste and seemed to agree with almost everything anybody said. He struck me as the weakest link.
Tristan and Ali Dent also had seats at the table.
From the CSTC vantage point, I was impressed to witness a side of Tristan and Ali that I hadn’t seen before.
Their insightful questions and thoughtful answers demonstrated to everyone present that they were as well versed in constitutional law as they were in the nuances of running the newest clandestine organization in the United States of America.
Alongside them were Dallas Fletcher and Morgan Porter, CEO and COO, respectively, of Black Star Services.
Black Star was the conjoined security twin with CSTC for Rocket’s Red Glare.
They had in fact been the ones behind our exfil aircraft from Nantucket—call it a no-notice dry run—and had set up the delivery of our recon team with a cover: Florida Moving and Storage.
It was understood that our Eagle, Hawk, and Falcon teams would fly our assault missions, while Black Star would do all the rest. I hadn’t worked with them much yet, but they had delivered twice so far—and that was good enough for me.
Air Force Academy roommates Dallas Fletcher and Morgan Porter, by their own admission, had not been “stellar” officers during their respective military careers.
Fletcher had been an Air Force logistician during Desert Storm.
His claim to fame, he wryly stated, was that in the months leading up to the war he sent more pallets of MREs to Kuwait for the troops than McDonald’s served Big Macs in Texas.
A year of loading food, uniforms, and even body bags into large-bodied aircraft led him to the conclusion that he had made a really big mistake with his life.
When he saw the planes hit the towers he called his old roommate.
Something had to be done. Porter, a former C-5 Galaxy pilot, had left military life for a job with FedEx, flying heavy cargo around the world.
What they’d both realized after 9/11 was that there was absolutely no way on God’s green Earth that the United States Air Force—let alone the rest of the Department of Defense—would be able to transport the millions of tons of equipment and soldiers necessary to fight a high-intensity war in the Middle East.
Like so many great ideas, theirs had been hatched over a couple of beers. After sketching a plan on a cocktail napkin at a bar in DC, they called some retired pilot buddies and figured out a way to lease a couple of heavy cargo platforms. Then they went to the Pentagon, hats in hand.
They called their new company White Star Aviation for the white stars of the American flag.
White Star’s first hauling assignments were humble—cargo that didn’t quite make the initial load plan, the military’s “leftovers.” By delivering their goods on time, on target, and most importantly, under budget, White Star Aviation boasted a fleet of shiny new airplanes by 2005, burning holes daily in the clouds between Dover and Dubai.
As Fletcher and Porter created more and more business opportunities for themselves, they doubled down and opened a sister company called Black Star Services.
Black Star had a singular focus: US special operations. WE FLY NOBODY NOWHERE was their motto, and they performed it brilliantly. Siphoning platforms and networks from White Star, they quickly began ferrying special operators and their toys to nasty places around the globe.
Land, sea, or air capabilities—Black Star had them all, every one untraceable and ultimately deniable.
If Uncle Sam needed to move a SEAL team to a nowhere spot in South America without leaving a signature, Black Star was the ticket.
They would fly into some obscure airfield with one tail number and mysteriously depart with another.
Not only did Black Star service the secret side of the government, but cutout companies used them to gain more distance from the Agency.
The value of flying nobody nowhere was staggering.
* * *
Oliver Smith and I were up next.
We delivered a summary of the significant events of the previous few days, from my arrival on Nantucket to the movements of our reconnaissance team currently in Palm Beach, Florida. We wrapped up with a condensed after-action report.
An inquisition followed. They were all fair points, but they also revealed that none of the questioners had ever lived through an in-extremis situation. Rounds of inquiries opened with Could you have or Why didn’t you or my favorite, from Carter Dempsey: If it was me, I would’ve yadda yadda.
Dempsey’s salvo got my temper flaring. I paused, careful to choose the right words before responding.
Luckily, Tabitha Doyle beat me to it. “Carter, your vast experience in tactical operations like the one just described by our Mr. Phillips here would, of course, give you the confidence and certainly the authority to challenge the leadership decisions made under fire by the man who was, in fact, on the ground.” The senator from Florida was practically spitting venom.
“Listen carefully, Carter,” she continued.
If her eyes could shoot fire, Dempsey would have been ashes.
“We may have some worthy perspectives to offer, but I assure you that nobody gives a damn about what you would’ve done.
If we are going to demand excellence, then we all need to demonstrate excellence—and by that I mean our courtesy and our professionalism.
Mr. Phillips is a tough man who can quite clearly handle himself in a room full of politicians and bureaucrats.
He signed up for that. What he didn’t sign up for was empty rhetoric. ”
She stared at the Michigan congressman, her eyes flashing but her voice level: “In short, please do not ask any more stupid fucking questions. We don’t have the time.”
Gracefully, Senator Doyle pivoted to me: “Mr. Phillips, I am very much interested in what you and Mr. Smith think is going on here.”
Her face was all business, but I caught the wink. She was on the team, signaling me to relax and speak from experience.
“Yes, Senator Doyle—thank you, ma’am. At the moment, the Russians are our only lead, but it doesn’t make sense that they’d try something so brazen as to kidnap, torture, and execute a sitting US senator.
That’s begging for retaliation on an unfathomable scale.
A nation-state gives us an easy target. Al-Qaeda makes more sense to me, but as far as we can tell, there has been no claim from them, not even following the video broadcast. Anybody with a mask and a black flag could have done that.
It seems almost more of a staged play than a planned operation. ”
“Mr. Phillips, what makes you say that?” Congressman Dempsey asked. My girl Tabitha gave him a look but nodded in my direction for me to continue.
“The assault and kidnapping were professional. These guys sank a fucking ferry. They coordinated a spectacular diversion while killing ninety-nine percent of a Secret Service detail who do this shit for a living. Add in the calls to France and the fact that the dead sniper was a Latino, and we’re facing a kaleidoscope of fragmented explanations. ”
Pencils scribbled across notebooks as I continued.
“Nothing is obvious about any of this, especially when the personal aspects are factored in. It was known that Harrison was cheating on his wife, who was living apart from him on another part of the island. We’ve also uncovered fishy behavior among Harrison’s staff leading up to the night of the attack.
There’s a drug piece related to the mistress, but it makes no sense—obviously a sloppy frame job.
Best scenario points to a group that put a lot of balls in the air—maybe one too many. ”
“Another cell or organization?” Jennings speculated. “Maybe one we haven’t yet heard of?”
The courtly Senator Schaffer spoke up for the first time, sounding skeptical: “It seems to me that it would be a very tall order for a brand-new terrorist cell to execute such a complex operation with seemingly no mistakes … no fog of war … no Murphy’s Law effects.”
“Well, John, I agree with you on almost every point. But we also have to consider the possibility that these people had access to inside information.”
Jennings looked at his watch, then made eye contact with Doyle. “Why don’t we take a quick break to stretch our legs—perhaps get a drink from the bar—before we continue?”
An agreement was reached.
“When we reconvene, Tabitha will close us out with an update from her position and some guidance for us all to move forward.”