Middle East Interlude
(with respects to Tom Clancy and John Patrick Ryan)
by Walt Tolmasoff
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Ryan sped towards the entrance gate.
What a world, he thought, having taken the “unmarked” exit off of route 365, as if no one was aware that this was the exit that led to The Company.
He sipped the espresso mit schlag purchased from the Starbucks on the corner of the strip mall nearest the entrance to The Campus – thank God for Starbucks, he thought. Seems like I’m living on cheap wine to get to sleep and mega-doses of caffeine to keep me going all day; wonder what Albright has in store for me today. How did that jerk ever get into a position of power like the DCC? he wondered, even though he knew the answer: politics.
After the Jacobsen fiasco, there was no other choice but to put Richard Albright into the chair. Admiral Greer fought against him tooth and nail, but the President wouldn’t be denied. After contributing that much money, Dick Albright could have anything he wanted.
Dick -- Ryan mused.
How appropriate.
As he approached the guard shack, Ryan got out his leather-covered ID and handed it to the guard. Two flack-jacketed marines stood in the background with M-16s not quite pointed at the suburban’s driver-side door.
“Morning sargeant, how’s it going?”
“Better than you, Doctor Ryan, I’m sure.” “Too bad about last week, I’m sure you did all you could.”
“It was him or me, son, him or me. What are you gonna’ do?”
“Hope for better times, I’m sure, sir. Have a good day.”
“Thanks” Ryan said as he pocketed the ID.
He didn’t want to think about last weeks attempt on his life. At this very guard shack! How the hell did that happen? He wasn’t sure, just astonished that a sleeper agent could get this close to The Company without being detected. Sure, security was beefed up to Level 5, but would that be enough? He still had nightmares about the jolly-faced, portly, middle-aged man that looked nothing like your “typical terrorist” who had taken a shot at him with what turned out to be a Smith and Wesson .44 with teflon slugs.
The Buick Crown Regal would be in the shop for a while; not sure how long. Would have to have the whole “enhanced” armor plated side replaced. Glad I’m not paying for it, he thought.
He parked in his regular spot; even though spaces were not really assigned, Ryan liked to park a few rows back; besides he needed the exercise. One of these days, after the current crisis, he supposed, he’d get back into those two-mile runs at daybreak around Falcon Cliff -- the scenery was gorgeous on these late Fall days; who knew? maybe even Kathy would join him. If she didn’t have a procedure at the eye clinic and had to leave even before his godforsaken alarm went off.
He took the VIP elevator to the fifth floor.
“VIP - - hunh!” he thought.
Victim in Progress, more likely.
Cafferty was in early. For a change. Ryan was not sure if he liked the little punk or not yet; even though he had been recommended by Greer, he couldn’t see what the Chief saw in him. Sure, he excelled scholastically even at the prestigious George Washington University, but this was the Real World – make a mistake here, and it could cost lives.
“Morning Doctor Ryan, how’s it goin’?”
“Not bad – for change. What’s the word on Hassan? Any new developments?”
“NSA’s got a drone targeting the area, but no joy so far. Could be in a cave. We can’t perform miracles.”
“That’s exactly what we need! Tell you what, I’ll bump it upstairs and see if I can get you a new pay grade; there may be some stuff that can help us strain the shit!”
“I don’t know…some of this stuff’s a little hard to take even at my level; do you suppose I could just take the pay raise and forget doing the work?”
Ryan knew he detested the little schmuck; what did he think this was? More Gameplay at the University? Still, his last analysis was more than up-to-par, in fact it was truly insightful. Maybe he’d give him another chance.
“I know it’s hard for you, but when you’ve been here as long as I have, you do grow a harder shell – even I’ve made mistakes, as hard as that is to believe…” Ryan knew he’d never divulge the particulars for the incident in Panama, God rest Enrico’s soul. Dying in my arms like that…
“Allison, could you get me The Boss on the line? Thanks.”
Jack supposed the President was on board with this; after Admiral Greer’s recommendation, how could he refuse Cafferty’s participation? Still, he had his doubts.
“Line one Doctor Ryan. He said this better be important.”
“Thanks…” Ryan pickup up the phone and punched the botton.
“Good morning Mr. President.”
“Jack, this had better be good. We’ve got a budget crises and those whack jobs are still all over Wall Street – what do they think, financial managers are all up to no good and want to destroy the country?”
“I think they have some just grievances, sir.”
“Whatever. Make it march.”
“Sir, I want to get your approval to bring Oswald Cafferty into the mix. Frankly, I’m overworked and could use the help.”
Drinking too much cheap wine and living on Starbucks, I’ll bet, thought the President.
“Do it. On my authority.”
“Thank you sir. I’ll let you know how it works out.”
“OK. Ryan – I have faith in the kid. Give him wings. Let him fly.”
“Yes sir.” the line went dead.
Ryan turned to face Cafferty.
“OK, you heard the man. You’re in.”
“Maybe now you can let me in on what I’m getting into?” said Cafferty as he stood up and looked out at The Campus.
Well this is it, thought Ryan.
“OK. Come with me.”
Ryan led the way down the carpeted hallway to the secure facilities. He swiped his card key in the slot in the black box next to a nondescript door. The light turned from red to green.
They proceeded into a small alcove overlooked by two uniformed men through some very thick glass.
“Good morning, sir. Could I see your ID?”
Ryan was normally pissed on being asked for his ID a second time (wasn’t he already in the building?) but after last week…
“Sure, here you go.” He pressed it to the glass.
“OK Doctor Ryan. What about him?”
“Cafferty” said Ryan as Oswald pressed his own ID to the glass.
“Yes sir. We just got traffic from the White House regarding his status change. Go ahead.”
The inner door clicked open, sounding as if it was an airlock, as indeed it was. The Inner Sanctum had it’s own air supply, as well as being shut off from the outside world except for it’s hardened communications facilities.
No bugs in here, thought Ryan.
“Sit.” ordered Ryan.
Cafferty took the chair offfered. Jack sat next to him in the luscious ergonomic chair.
“Jesus. This is quite a chair!” commented Oswald.
“You’re gonna spend a lot of hours here, son. Might as well be comfortable.”
Jack launched the system and brought up the interface.
“OK. Here’s the story. We’re swamped with data. No, we’re inundated with data. We’ve got ELINT, SIGINT, HUMINT and you-name-it INT. There’s satellite data, ground-reconnaissance data, data from troops in the field. We’ve got video, we’ve got biometric, we’ve got phone records, spreadsheets, recovered documents…damn it, there’s no end to it! How the hell are we gonna make sense of this?”
“Sir, I don’t know. Maybe hire some more people? I suppose they could be brought up to speed in a couple of months?”
“Damn it! We don’t have a couple of months! If we don’t get a handle on this situation soon, we’ll be run out of Afghanistan before the end of the year!”
“Doctor Ryan…Jack, you don’t mean it?”
“You can call me Jack, we’re on the same team. Yeah, well don’t quote me anywhere.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“Take a look at your screen, kid.”
“OK. What is this? Looks pretty complicated.”
“Naw, it’s a lot easier than it looks, especially with the 3.0 interface. What you have in front of you is something will save our collective asses. We’ve got access to any databases you can think of: NSA, CIA, Commanders-in-the-field, all Real Time synchronized, up-to-date data, regardless of location, all while maintaining rock-solid security. It doesn’t get much better than this.”
“Whew. What can I do with it?”
“Pull up ‘All Attacks’ on the menu. See that? You’re looking at five and half years of data on the ODNI database. All attacks on our troops in the Kandahar region. Now attach it to graphs. Do a histogram.”
“Like this?”
“Not quite. Here, let me show you: drop down to ‘Event Properties’; select ‘Kandahar’ then ‘IEDs’. You see? about one-third of the attacks are IEDs.”
“What if we select ‘Citizens Pakistan’? You know, to see if we can get a handle on Abdul Omar Hassan?”
“Good call, Oswald. Can I call you Ozzie?”
“Sure, why not? Looks like we’ve got a hit. Four attacks near the airport. How can we narrow it down?”
“Use the polygon tool, see up at the top? Drag your selection up to the map first” said Jack.
“Got it. So… this is telling me that there have been attacks on Pakistani citizens. What happens if we drill down further? There he is!
Abdul Omar Hassan
Ranking official with the PRK.
Motivation for reported information is the desire for
Monetary compensation.
Believed to be still alive as of this date.
Source reliability C4.
“Wasn’t he one of the main traffickers for poppy?” asked
Ryan.
“Let’s see. I’ll do a search for ‘Ministry of Rural Reconstruction’ and see what I get. There it is! These are the areas that show all regions that are getting money from it. I’ll drag the results to the map. Looks like nobody around Kandahar’s getting any money from it. They must be financed with poppy production money.”
“From Mr. Hassan. Wish we could take him out…” suggested Ryan.
“Maybe there’s a way. Can we get a live feed?” asked Cafferty.
“This is Jack Ryan at Foggy bottom. Got any drones flying around Kandahar?” Jack twiddled with the curly phone wire.
“I know it’s the middle of the night there, but we may have a Target! OK, can you punch it in to my monitor? Great. Thanks!”
“Jack. We’re getting something from Palantir Forward Mobile; I’ll bet they’re uploading from their iPhone!”
“Patch it in. Look here. There we go, infrared real-time imaging. Can we zoom in? All right. How about biometrics? Got his fingerprints? Yes! Correlate biometric data with live feed from the drone. And there he is, lit up like a Christmas tree!”
“Do you want to take it from here?” Jack asked Oswald.
“Sure, why not?”
“Special Operations requesting Hellfire missle for acquired target in real-time, authorization … uh, Jack do you have…?”
“Jack Ryan here. Authorization QXB1197-1A. Requesting you take out target painted on your monitor. Roger that. Fifteen seconds.”
“Damn. That fast?”
“Our boys don’t waste any time” said Ryan.
There was a bright flash on the screen. The primary financier for most of the Poppy trade in Afghanistan was no more.
“Wow. Some piece of software.” said Cafferty.
“It makes our life easier.” said Ryan.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“With you, sir.”
They walked back down the hallway together and out into the October dusk.
“The days are really getting shorter…”
“You said it Ozzie. See you tomorrow?”
“You bet, Jack. And Doctor Ryan, … thanks.”
“You did a good job in there, son.”
“I had a good teacher, sir. Goodnight sir.”
“Goodnight.”
(with respects to Tom Clancy and John Patrick Ryan)
by Walt Tolmasoff
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Ryan sped towards the entrance gate.
What a world, he thought, having taken the “unmarked” exit off of route 365, as if no one was aware that this was the exit that led to The Company.
He sipped the espresso mit schlag purchased from the Starbucks on the corner of the strip mall nearest the entrance to The Campus – thank God for Starbucks, he thought. Seems like I’m living on cheap wine to get to sleep and mega-doses of caffeine to keep me going all day; wonder what Albright has in store for me today. How did that jerk ever get into a position of power like the DCC? he wondered, even though he knew the answer: politics.
After the Jacobsen fiasco, there was no other choice but to put Richard Albright into the chair. Admiral Greer fought against him tooth and nail, but the President wouldn’t be denied. After contributing that much money, Dick Albright could have anything he wanted.
Dick -- Ryan mused.
How appropriate.
As he approached the guard shack, Ryan got out his leather-covered ID and handed it to the guard. Two flack-jacketed marines stood in the background with M-16s not quite pointed at the suburban’s driver-side door.
“Morning sargeant, how’s it going?”
“Better than you, Doctor Ryan, I’m sure.” “Too bad about last week, I’m sure you did all you could.”
“It was him or me, son, him or me. What are you gonna’ do?”
“Hope for better times, I’m sure, sir. Have a good day.”
“Thanks” Ryan said as he pocketed the ID.
He didn’t want to think about last weeks attempt on his life. At this very guard shack! How the hell did that happen? He wasn’t sure, just astonished that a sleeper agent could get this close to The Company without being detected. Sure, security was beefed up to Level 5, but would that be enough? He still had nightmares about the jolly-faced, portly, middle-aged man that looked nothing like your “typical terrorist” who had taken a shot at him with what turned out to be a Smith and Wesson .44 with teflon slugs.
The Buick Crown Regal would be in the shop for a while; not sure how long. Would have to have the whole “enhanced” armor plated side replaced. Glad I’m not paying for it, he thought.
He parked in his regular spot; even though spaces were not really assigned, Ryan liked to park a few rows back; besides he needed the exercise. One of these days, after the current crisis, he supposed, he’d get back into those two-mile runs at daybreak around Falcon Cliff -- the scenery was gorgeous on these late Fall days; who knew? maybe even Kathy would join him. If she didn’t have a procedure at the eye clinic and had to leave even before his godforsaken alarm went off.
He took the VIP elevator to the fifth floor.
“VIP - - hunh!” he thought.
Victim in Progress, more likely.
Cafferty was in early. For a change. Ryan was not sure if he liked the little punk or not yet; even though he had been recommended by Greer, he couldn’t see what the Chief saw in him. Sure, he excelled scholastically even at the prestigious George Washington University, but this was the Real World – make a mistake here, and it could cost lives.
“Morning Doctor Ryan, how’s it goin’?”
“Not bad – for change. What’s the word on Hassan? Any new developments?”
“NSA’s got a drone targeting the area, but no joy so far. Could be in a cave. We can’t perform miracles.”
“That’s exactly what we need! Tell you what, I’ll bump it upstairs and see if I can get you a new pay grade; there may be some stuff that can help us strain the shit!”
“I don’t know…some of this stuff’s a little hard to take even at my level; do you suppose I could just take the pay raise and forget doing the work?”
Ryan knew he detested the little schmuck; what did he think this was? More Gameplay at the University? Still, his last analysis was more than up-to-par, in fact it was truly insightful. Maybe he’d give him another chance.
“I know it’s hard for you, but when you’ve been here as long as I have, you do grow a harder shell – even I’ve made mistakes, as hard as that is to believe…” Ryan knew he’d never divulge the particulars for the incident in Panama, God rest Enrico’s soul. Dying in my arms like that…
“Allison, could you get me The Boss on the line? Thanks.”
Jack supposed the President was on board with this; after Admiral Greer’s recommendation, how could he refuse Cafferty’s participation? Still, he had his doubts.
“Line one Doctor Ryan. He said this better be important.”
“Thanks…” Ryan pickup up the phone and punched the botton.
“Good morning Mr. President.”
“Jack, this had better be good. We’ve got a budget crises and those whack jobs are still all over Wall Street – what do they think, financial managers are all up to no good and want to destroy the country?”
“I think they have some just grievances, sir.”
“Whatever. Make it march.”
“Sir, I want to get your approval to bring Oswald Cafferty into the mix. Frankly, I’m overworked and could use the help.”
Drinking too much cheap wine and living on Starbucks, I’ll bet, thought the President.
“Do it. On my authority.”
“Thank you sir. I’ll let you know how it works out.”
“OK. Ryan – I have faith in the kid. Give him wings. Let him fly.”
“Yes sir.” the line went dead.
Ryan turned to face Cafferty.
“OK, you heard the man. You’re in.”
“Maybe now you can let me in on what I’m getting into?” said Cafferty as he stood up and looked out at The Campus.
Well this is it, thought Ryan.
“OK. Come with me.”
Ryan led the way down the carpeted hallway to the secure facilities. He swiped his card key in the slot in the black box next to a nondescript door. The light turned from red to green.
They proceeded into a small alcove overlooked by two uniformed men through some very thick glass.
“Good morning, sir. Could I see your ID?”
Ryan was normally pissed on being asked for his ID a second time (wasn’t he already in the building?) but after last week…
“Sure, here you go.” He pressed it to the glass.
“OK Doctor Ryan. What about him?”
“Cafferty” said Ryan as Oswald pressed his own ID to the glass.
“Yes sir. We just got traffic from the White House regarding his status change. Go ahead.”
The inner door clicked open, sounding as if it was an airlock, as indeed it was. The Inner Sanctum had it’s own air supply, as well as being shut off from the outside world except for it’s hardened communications facilities.
No bugs in here, thought Ryan.
“Sit.” ordered Ryan.
Cafferty took the chair offfered. Jack sat next to him in the luscious ergonomic chair.
“Jesus. This is quite a chair!” commented Oswald.
“You’re gonna spend a lot of hours here, son. Might as well be comfortable.”
Jack launched the system and brought up the interface.
“OK. Here’s the story. We’re swamped with data. No, we’re inundated with data. We’ve got ELINT, SIGINT, HUMINT and you-name-it INT. There’s satellite data, ground-reconnaissance data, data from troops in the field. We’ve got video, we’ve got biometric, we’ve got phone records, spreadsheets, recovered documents…damn it, there’s no end to it! How the hell are we gonna make sense of this?”
“Sir, I don’t know. Maybe hire some more people? I suppose they could be brought up to speed in a couple of months?”
“Damn it! We don’t have a couple of months! If we don’t get a handle on this situation soon, we’ll be run out of Afghanistan before the end of the year!”
“Doctor Ryan…Jack, you don’t mean it?”
“You can call me Jack, we’re on the same team. Yeah, well don’t quote me anywhere.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“Take a look at your screen, kid.”
“OK. What is this? Looks pretty complicated.”
“Naw, it’s a lot easier than it looks, especially with the 3.0 interface. What you have in front of you is something will save our collective asses. We’ve got access to any databases you can think of: NSA, CIA, Commanders-in-the-field, all Real Time synchronized, up-to-date data, regardless of location, all while maintaining rock-solid security. It doesn’t get much better than this.”
“Whew. What can I do with it?”
“Pull up ‘All Attacks’ on the menu. See that? You’re looking at five and half years of data on the ODNI database. All attacks on our troops in the Kandahar region. Now attach it to graphs. Do a histogram.”
“Like this?”
“Not quite. Here, let me show you: drop down to ‘Event Properties’; select ‘Kandahar’ then ‘IEDs’. You see? about one-third of the attacks are IEDs.”
“What if we select ‘Citizens Pakistan’? You know, to see if we can get a handle on Abdul Omar Hassan?”
“Good call, Oswald. Can I call you Ozzie?”
“Sure, why not? Looks like we’ve got a hit. Four attacks near the airport. How can we narrow it down?”
“Use the polygon tool, see up at the top? Drag your selection up to the map first” said Jack.
“Got it. So… this is telling me that there have been attacks on Pakistani citizens. What happens if we drill down further? There he is!
Abdul Omar Hassan
Ranking official with the PRK.
Motivation for reported information is the desire for
Monetary compensation.
Believed to be still alive as of this date.
Source reliability C4.
“Wasn’t he one of the main traffickers for poppy?” asked
Ryan.
“Let’s see. I’ll do a search for ‘Ministry of Rural Reconstruction’ and see what I get. There it is! These are the areas that show all regions that are getting money from it. I’ll drag the results to the map. Looks like nobody around Kandahar’s getting any money from it. They must be financed with poppy production money.”
“From Mr. Hassan. Wish we could take him out…” suggested Ryan.
“Maybe there’s a way. Can we get a live feed?” asked Cafferty.
“This is Jack Ryan at Foggy bottom. Got any drones flying around Kandahar?” Jack twiddled with the curly phone wire.
“I know it’s the middle of the night there, but we may have a Target! OK, can you punch it in to my monitor? Great. Thanks!”
“Jack. We’re getting something from Palantir Forward Mobile; I’ll bet they’re uploading from their iPhone!”
“Patch it in. Look here. There we go, infrared real-time imaging. Can we zoom in? All right. How about biometrics? Got his fingerprints? Yes! Correlate biometric data with live feed from the drone. And there he is, lit up like a Christmas tree!”
“Do you want to take it from here?” Jack asked Oswald.
“Sure, why not?”
“Special Operations requesting Hellfire missle for acquired target in real-time, authorization … uh, Jack do you have…?”
“Jack Ryan here. Authorization QXB1197-1A. Requesting you take out target painted on your monitor. Roger that. Fifteen seconds.”
“Damn. That fast?”
“Our boys don’t waste any time” said Ryan.
There was a bright flash on the screen. The primary financier for most of the Poppy trade in Afghanistan was no more.
“Wow. Some piece of software.” said Cafferty.
“It makes our life easier.” said Ryan.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“With you, sir.”
They walked back down the hallway together and out into the October dusk.
“The days are really getting shorter…”
“You said it Ozzie. See you tomorrow?”
“You bet, Jack. And Doctor Ryan, … thanks.”
“You did a good job in there, son.”
“I had a good teacher, sir. Goodnight sir.”
“Goodnight.”
