Oath of Office

Cell phones were customarily left in a basket outside the Oval, so Burgess opened a drawer in the base of his chair, retrieving one of the secure landlines to make his call. He cupped a hand over his mouth, speaking in hushed but forceful tones to convey the gravity and necessary speed of the situation. He hung up less than a minute later, giving the President a nod that it was done.

Forrestal said, “Two MQ-9s are in the air now from Garoua. They should be on scene in the next ten minutes.”

“Good to hear,” Ryan said. “Let’s get the feeds piped into the Situation Room.”

“Already being done, Mr. President,” Burgess said.

“Bob,” Ryan said. “Any of those sons of bitches who’ve attacked American soil so much as point an antiaircraft weapon above the tree line, and we dust them.”

“Understood.”

“The Task Force Darby CO”—Forrestal referred to his notes—“Major Workman, is discussing the situation with his host counterparts there in the northern part of the country.”

“Eighty-seventh Infantry out of Fort Drum is running the show along the Nigerian border,” Burgess said.

Ryan gave a nod of approval. “Tenth Mountain. Good.”

Burgess continued. “Major Workman feels confident at least some of the Cameroonian Rapid Intervention Battalion will give him a straight answer. They’ve spilled blood and shed blood together fighting Boko Haram. There’s some trust there going both ways.”

“If they even know,” Ryan said. “BIR forces working daily alongside the U.S. military are not likely to be in the loop on any attack. Are you telling me the Cameroonian military chased one of their own generals into our embassy and nothing hit any of our tripwires?”

Every U.S. mission overseas had emergency action plans that included highly classified benchmarks that would elicit specific responses. These benchmarks were known as tripwires. Molotov cocktails on a car parked across the street might cause an increased uniformed guard presence. Lob one over the fence and stronger measures would kick in. Certain tripwires — coups, nearby terrorist attacks — might call for anything from the evacuation of nonessential personnel all the way to the destruction of documents and closure of the embassy.

“None, Mr. President,” SecState Adler said. “This happened all at once. No warning. No tripwires.”

Forrestal said, “Initial reports indicate most locally hired security forces have walked away in the face of the military vehicles.”

“‘Most’?” Ryan said.

“Korean witnesses say there are two out front with the Marines.”

Ryan took a deep breath. “I’m trying to imagine our Marines allowing people to run into the embassy, even a general.”

Forrestal paused for a moment, like he had uncomfortable news. “The Korean diplomat I spoke to indicated the Marines taught a big self-defense course to local women and girls. This is only a guess, but General Mbida’s daughter could have been part of that class. According to the South Koreans, the Marines recognized them, saw they were in danger, and let them in.”

Now Ryan let go with an honest-to-goodness groan.

“What about Diplomatic Security?” he asked. The regional security officer would be the senior law enforcement and security expert at the embassy.

“The RSO is a guy named Carr,” Adler said. “He was a SWAT officer with Albuquerque PD before he came on with State. I pulled his record before coming over here. He’s apparently kind of a badass. He’s been with DSS for fourteen years.”

“We could use a few badasses over there right now,” Ryan mused. “Cameroon… That’s Ambassador Burlingame. Right?”

“Correct, Mr. President,” Adler said. “Chance Burlingame. He came over from USAID a couple of months ago. He’s got a lengthy history with the foreign service in Africa.”

“What’s his status at this moment?”

“Outside the embassy,” Adler said, shifting on his feet as he did so. No one in the room liked to admit that they did not have a clear answer to one of the President’s questions. “We are still checking. But according to the staffer who made the original call to Ops, the badass RSO is with him.”

15

Adin Carr loved his job, but he didn’t care much for the title of regional security officer. His father was a cop, his brother was a cop, and he was a cop — not a security officer. The title of RSO was absent from his business cards and he introduced himself simply as Special Agent Carr. No one in Africa — or anywhere else other than the big-dog diplomats at Foggy Bottom — cared anyway.

“You, Mr. Ambassador,” Carr said, dodging a centipede the size of his hand as it undulated across the dirt trail, “are one heck of a runner.”