Chapter 33

President Anthony Archer looked around the briefing room with a frown. Shaking his head in disgust, he looked over at Jack Lancer as he said, “The President of the Philippines does not believe our intelligence. What are our options?”

Jack Lancer was currently in charge of the political assessments groups for the Asian Pacific countries. He answered, “We can sit by and watch the Philippines fall, we can try again to convince the President of the Philippines to act now, or we can put an end to the coup before it has a chance to start.”

“I can’t convince him of shit since he won’t accept my calls,” Anthony said striking the table with a fist.

Four times he had saved the Philippines from being the site of a major terrorist attack. Each time, the President of the Philippines had protested the actions. He was half tempted to let the Philippines fall to the terrorists.

Jack knew that was going to happen. He said, “Then that gives us two choices.”

“I wish I could get that man to listen to reason,” Anthony said.

Shaking his head at the idea that the President of the Philippines was being unreasonable, Jack said, “You have to understand things from his perspective. Since you came in office, all of the terrorist attacks in the Philippines have been aimed at American, Australian, and British interests. None of them have been aimed against the Philippine government. They don’t want to rock the boat.”

“But we’re telling them that their boat is going to get sunk unless they do something.”

Jack said, “Our history with them is not very good. We supported them in fighting the terrorists under Bush, but abandoned them under the next President. They got clobbered there for a bit, but things calmed down after a while. Now we say we want them to go after the terrorists and that we will support them in the fight.

“They don’t believe us. They think that we’re manufacturing this crisis to get them to join our war. They don’t want to join our war because they believe that when we get tired of fighting it that they are going to be hung out to dry.”

Anthony Archer shook his head. Any time that he tried to get support from other countries it always ended up the same. Every world leader of battleground countries told him straight out that America was not a good and consistent ally. The problem was that he believed it as well. The Peace At Any Price crowd was already starting to make anti-war sounds.

Shaking his head, he said, “I’m not going to watch that government fall. I’ll keep calling them. You guys can keep forwarding the intelligence to them in the hope that eventually they will listen to us.”

“What should I tell the Navy?” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked.

“Tell them to be ready to take out the terrorists. We’ll wait until the last minute to give the Philippine government a chance to act,” the President answered.

Everyone in the room was tense as the live feeds from Predator Drones and mini-drones played out on the screens at the head of the room. They were currently watching the area around one of the largest Mosques in the Philippines. Over the past twenty minutes, a huge crowd had gathered around the Mosque.

Having just entered the room, Mike asked, “What’s happening?”

“The Imam is telling them that it’s time to take control of the country,” Tony answered. He was the group’s most fluent speaker of Tagalog, and was listening to the speech taking place inside the Mosque.

Mike asked, “Where is the weapons cache?”

“That very large warehouse next to the Mosque is filled to the rafters with weapons,” Jim answered. He was looking forward to seeing it explode. That was going to be one big bang.

“The Mosque will be taken out when they hit it,” Mike said.

“That’s right. So will every building within three hundred yards of that warehouse,” Jim answered.

Mike could easily imagine the reaction of the world to the destruction of the Mosque. He tried to consider the alternatives, but couldn’t come up with any.

Looking over at Jim, he said, “Inform the Navy that the terrorist are about to make their move and give them the coordinates of the weapons store. I want you to send the President the full disclosure on the proximity of the Mosque to the warehouse and the surrounding domiciles.”

Jim typed a few commands on his computer and then said, “I’ve uploaded everything to him.”

Looking over at Shirley, Mike hadn’t given up hope that one of the locals might make an attempt to prevent the coup. He asked, “Has anyone in that area reported to their government what is happening?”

“No one has said a word,” Shirley answered. She zoomed one of the cameras out and pointed to the crowd that surrounded the Mosque. She said, “The whole neighborhood is watching what is going on.”

Listening to a feed from the area, Tony said, “They are shouting Jihad over and over.”

“They aren’t watching, they are cheering,” Mike said looking at the images being broadcast.

Glancing over at the feed covering the warehouse, Shirley said, “It looks like they are opening up the warehouse.”

Mike glanced over at the monitor and shook his head. He picked up the phone and dialed the situation room at the White House. When the President answered, he said, “This is Mike Bowman. They are about to make their move.”

“I’ll issue the order,” President Archer replied in a tense voice before hanging up the phone.

Shaking his head, Mike said, “I guess all we can do is watch. Make sure that we record the missile hitting the warehouse. We want to be able to show the world that we didn’t target the Mosque.”

The explosion produced by the missile striking the warehouse was huge. It took out the Mosque, the crowd, and half of the neighborhood. The flimsy construction of the buildings in the area didn’t stand a chance against the blast. All of the analysts in the room stared at the devastation in shock. Even though they understood intellectually what to expect, the reality of it went directly to an emotional response.

Mike was the first to recover from his shock. He said, “I would say that one terrorist threat has been eliminated. Let’s box up the recordings and ship them off to the Philippine National Security Agency.”

Nodding his head in acknowledgment, Jim went to work at the keyboard. Shirley turned to Mike and said, “No one is going to believe it. They are going to think that we hit them with some sort of super bomb.”

“It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, we know that another threat has been eliminated,” Mike said.

“The collateral damage is huge,” Shirley said.

“Collateral damage?” Mike asked.

“The civilian bystanders,” Shirley said.

Mike sat back and looked around the room. He could see that she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. After clearing his throat, he said, “Everyone in the neighborhood could hear that sermon given by the Imam. We know that it wasn’t the first sermon calling for the overthrow of the government. Not one person there warned the legitimate government that a group of people was planning on taking over the government through force. They aren’t innocent bystanders. They are accessories to terrorism. They were directly supporting the terrorists by their cheers or their silence. We don’t know how many of those so called innocent bystanders were going to walk over to that warehouse and grab a gun.”

Nodding her head, Shirley said, “You’re right.”

Mike and Cathy listened to the news that night to see how they covered the attack. The coverage was remarkably balanced. President Archer felt that it was better to allow the intelligence to speak for itself. He authorized the release of the complete recordings of the weapons stored in the warehouse, the speech of the Imam calling for overthrow of the government, the crowd shouting Jihad, and the missile striking the warehouse.

The American public remembered the previous five years of living in fear of men motivated to violence by radical Imams. They recognized the true threat documented in the recordings. Many had seen and heard similar rants being broadcast before the attacks on Americans began. They knew that it wasn’t a threat, but a promise of action.

The rest of the world did not believe the tapes. The Islamic public relations engine presented the Americans as cold blooded murders of innocent people. They broadcast dead bodies being pulled from a school. It wasn’t even clear that the school was anywhere near the scene of the explosion. They presented films of anguished families wailing for the dead. They played recordings of the President of the Philippines proclaiming that the Americans had acted against his explicit orders to the contrary. The world was eating it up.

Impressed by what she had seen, Cathy turned to Mike and said, “They are so much better at presenting their case than we are.”

“I know. Did you notice that they didn’t address what was actually happening at the Mosque? They don’t have to defend themselves. They present themselves as the victim and point all of the blame at us. We just won a major victory by preventing the overthrow of a relatively stable government and the world is condemning us,” Mike said shaking his head.

Cathy commented, “You know that wars are not won on the battlefield, don’t you?”

“I haven’t figured out how wars are won,” Mike said giving voice to an often repeated complaint.

“They are won or lost in the press. A good propaganda campaign can undo any victory on the battlefield,” Cathy said.

The nature of the American press was to find fault with the government and its actions. The nature of the enemy press was to support their war efforts. The result was that presentations of both sides of the conflict portrayed American actions as being wrong.

“So how can we turn that around?” Mike asked.

He actually knew the military value of a well oiled propaganda machine. The problem was that the Americans were really bad at it. They suffered under the lash of a press that worked to keep the government honest. It couldn’t use the big lie. Sure, they could sell packaged ice to Eskimos using commercials, but they couldn’t sell that beating an enemy constituted a victory.

Cathy shrugged her shoulders and said, “The easiest way is not to have any regard for the truth. If you say what people want to hear and say it with conviction, it can become the truth. I can guarantee you that within two days, they’ll be saying that our tapes are fakes.”

“So how do we counter that?” Mike asked.

“I have no idea,” Cathy answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

Mike joked, “If you can solve that problem, you’ll be a hero.”

Cathy was silent for a minute as she considered what Mike had said. She looked over at Mike and said, “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll think about it.”

“It’s about time we go visit Sanjay and his lovely wife, Teva the conniver,” Mike said.

Cathy laughed at his characterization of Teva. She had listened to Mike explain how a large number of people had been working behind the scenes in order to get them together. Although she didn’t quite believe him, it was obvious to her that he believed it.

She said, “I guess that means that I finally get to meet one of the conspirators.”

“You already know Kim,” Mike said.

“She’s in on the conspiracy?”

“That’s right,” Mike said.

Mike tossed a beer to Sanjay and said, “The women are in the kitchen planning my downfall.”

Sanjay laughed and popped the top on the beer. After taking a chug, he said, “Relax, it will only be a little painful.”

“Thanks,” Mike said.

“She is a beautiful woman,” Sanjay said gesturing towards the house.

Mike sighed and said, “I miss Karen and Robert. I loved them so much that I thought I would die when they died. There are times when I hate myself for being with Cathy. I know that Karen is dead, but I feel like I’m cheating on her. I can’t help it.”