I Minus 72

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Watch for More Dagger Books Novels

by Don Tompkins

from Second Wind Publishing

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Dagger Books

Published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Kernersville

Dagger Books

Second Wind Publishing, LLC

931-B South Main Street, Box 145

Kernersville, NC 27284

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, locations and events are either a product of the
author’s imagination, fictitious or used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to any event, locale or person, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.

Copyright 2014 by Don Tompkins

All rights reserved, including the right of
reproduction in whole or part in any format.

First Dagger Books edition published
October, 2014

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Manufactured in the United States of
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ISBN 978-1-63066-076-5

To all the men and women who are serving or
who have served in the United States Armed Forces.

You do what you do so that we may be free to
do what we do. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.

To my wife, Kelly. You've read and edited
the manuscript dozens of times and still urged me on to
completion.

Thanks for being there with me every step of
the way.

I minus 72

The President-elect

“Good morning, Mr. President.
Congratulations on your election.”

The President-elect greeted the DNI with a
handshake, and said, “Good morning, Director. May I call you Bill?”
Without waiting for an answer the President-elect continued.
“Thanks for scheduling this briefing so early. These are busy
times. What do you have for me? Oh, by the way, it’s still Governor
or President-elect until after the inauguration.” He sat down in
one of the briefing room’s plush leather chairs.

“
Yes, Sir,” Barry began,
still standing. “For this initial briefing, I have both information
and intelligence,”

William C. Barry had been appointed Director
of National Intelligence by the previous administration and Ted
Mason, the new President-elect, didn’t plan to replace him.

Mason motioned for Barry to sit down. They
were in a small, but elegantly appointed briefing room, large
enough for more, but today there were only the two of them. The
room was in a secure area of the White House, but, even so had
earlier been swept for electronic eavesdropping devices by the
Secret Service. The room had no windows and was buried in one of
the sub-floors.

Barry continued, “With your permission, Mr.
President-elect, I’d like to start this briefing with an overview
of what intelligence is and how we obtain it. Then we’ll go on to
current events you should be aware of."

Mason interrupted, “Look, Bill, can we skip
the background today? Maybe we can cover it next week. I want to
hear it, but my schedule is so tight that right now isn't the best
time. Can we get straight to what’s hot?”

“Of course, sir,” Barry responded. He was
used to Presidents changing the agenda. “We do have one major issue
we need to deal with immediately.”

“What’s up?” Mason said, leaning back and
crossing his legs. As was his habit, he put his elbows on the arms
of the big chair and placed his hands together in his lap,
intertwining his fingers.

“Sir, within the last two weeks, we’ve lost
fourteen assets, all but one were foreign nationals. What makes
this even more alarming is that they were all within the same
intelligence network. We have to assume someone has targeted that
particular network.”

Mason immediately leaned forward and
uncrossed his legs. “Did they take out the whole network?” he asked
incredulously.

“No, sir, about twenty-five percent,” Barry
responded in his usual calm voice.

“We’ve lost a quarter of a spy network in
two weeks? How many people were in it?” Mason leaned back in his
chair, but his face still registered concern.

“
We think there were about
sixty informants in total.” Barry continued, “But, there are
probably people in the network we don’t know about. Many of our
foreign assets were allowed to recruit others and many of those
wanted their identity kept completely secret. For some of those we
just used code names. But there were usually others who were
completely unidentified sources. Then, as now, as long as they fed
us useful information,” he shrugged, “we were generally willing to
accept it. We’re fairly certain we don’t know about some of those
people. The number for the entire network could be as high as
eighty.”

“Does the President know?” Mason was leaning
forward again.

Barry replied in a controlled voice. “Yes
sir. We briefed him thirty minutes ago.” He’d been through a lot of
intense briefings in his career, so he didn’t get too excited when
talking to high-ranking government officials, including
Presidents.

Mason nodded. “If this has been going on for
two weeks, why so long in notifying the President?”

Mason’s voice was now calm, but Barry was
worried where this might be going. “We didn’t connect the deaths
until a day ago. It’s not unusual for assets, both ours and theirs,
to miss contact times. But all of these disappearances were within
the same network. That’s what caught our attention. It means
someone has turned, and Russia, or someone else, is taking these
people out. It may be restricted to this one cluster or it may
expand. We just don’t know where this is going.”

“Damn!” Mason said, leaning forward and
putting both hands on the table. Then, after a slight pause during
which the DNI said nothing, he leaned back again and continued,
“Okay, what do you need from me?”

“Sir, we believe you are,” the DNI paused,
“on the list to ahh . . . eliminate.”

At this, Mason stood up, leaned forward and
slapped both hands down hard on the table. “Why the hell would I be
on some intelligence network hit list?”

Barry briefly pressed his lips together, but
answered calmly. “We don’t really know for sure. One of our sources
found a torn piece of paper in the hand of one of the dead
informants. The paper had two names on it and a date.” He paused,
took a deep breath and continued, “Yours was one of the names and
the date was your inauguration.”

Mason’s jaw dropped open. This was not what
he expected to hear. He didn’t know exactly what to say, so he said
nothing.

The DNI quickly went on to explain, “We
currently have no way to verify that this was a hit list, but
because of all the other deaths, we have to take the threat
seriously. We’ve put a number of actions in place to find out who’s
responsible and to tighten security throughout the whole
inauguration process. We’re calling the operation ‘I minus
72’.”

Getting no response other than a hard stare
from the President-elect who was still leaning over the table, the
DNI continued. “You see, we have 72 days until your
inauguration.”

Mason finally spoke, “I get it,” he said
dryly. He stared at Barry a moment, sat back down and said, “Look,
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but it would be very bad for a
newly elected president to be ‘ahh . . . eliminated’ while taking
the oath of office. Anyway, I can’t think of a reason why I would
ever make somebody’s hit list, at least from an intelligence
viewpoint. I was never in the field and didn’t even understand how
intelligence networks worked. Still don’t, but this just can’t be
that tough to figure out, right?”

Barry grimaced a little, stood up and began
to pace. “It’s actually a lot more difficult than it looks Mr.
President-elect. We believe you must have had access to some sort
of information that might reveal why this is happening and who is
targeting you. Since it was your only intel assignment, we assume
it was right after you graduated from Annapolis, when you were with
DIA. You can see why it’s so vital that we quickly determine what
you might have seen and why it resulted in your name being on the
list. That may be the only shot we have at getting to the bottom of
this in time.”

“Who set this network up? Someone must have
been in charge. Have you talked to him?” Mason leaned back in his
chair and rubbed his temples while he watched the DNI pace.

“It’s touchy because this network was set up
by an Air Force officer who has since retired.” Barry replied. “You
see, in our world, information about who is providing what is
closely guarded. At headquarters we don’t necessarily have all the
details of the network. The only person that normally has complete
visibility is the person who sets it up and controls it.”

“Okay, so, who was it?” Mason asked again, a
little impatiently.

“Sir, the originator of this network is a
man named Grant Thurmond. You may remember his name from your early
days in the Navy. You were the administrative officer for his group
in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure. Tell me a little about
him.” Mason responded.

Barry sat back down, picked up and opened a
folder. “Thurmond was early-selected for the Air Force Academy his
junior year in high school. At the academy he majored in
Astronautical Engineering, played football and still graduated near
the top of his class. He went straight into intelligence training
after graduation.”

Mason nodded. “Yeah . . . maybe I do kinda
remember him. If it’s the guy I think it was, he’s really sharp,
nice enough, all military. But I only worked with him for a short
while in an administrative role. I’m not sure I would even
recognize him. Can you give me a little more background?.”