Last of the French Roast

118.

The extremely short notice leaves us one man down, Calahan scrambling in Portland to set up and unable to meet the time restraints. TOM decided to start without him and tasks me with the responsibility of getting him up to speed once he is up and running.

TOM and Julie come on looking their usual capable and competent selves, although a touch fatigued. There is just no way to hide the look of weariness around the eyes I think as Drysdale and I bring our chairs closer to the screen. 

TOM opens with the usual updates, a compilation of input from a dozen world-wide reports, condensed and prioritized to the top five or six most relevant. International chatter is still trending upwards in the towns where we now have a counter-terrorism presence; Omaha, Tucson, Portland and Vegas. In what is rapidly being considered a changing of the guard from the old-school to the new, it appears that this battlefield will be a virtual one and not a line drawn in the sand, with terabytes and deep fake video edging out saber rattling and arms movements, processing power versus boots on the ground. 

TOM concludes his comments and turns the briefing over to Julie. I am immediately taken by her sophisticated command of the moment. She is in total control and wastes no time in moving straight to her assignment: Getting us up to speed on the modern look of high-speed, multi-level guerrilla warfare. In yet another metaphor of the passage of time, I sit scribbling notes on a legal pad with a ball-point pen as Drysdale listens and types notes in his iPad at six-five words per minute. Thinking back upon my Dad and Grandfather's military careers I wonder what they might think of all this new technology, ending the fantasy indulgence by chuckling as the cliché of this not being my Grandfather's Buick comes to mind. 

I am watching and listening to my college sweetheart lecture my elite squad on modern terrorist techniques trying not to interrupt her flow of vital information with dumb questions that might slow her down. I find the dichotomy to be an interesting paradox, and urge myself to stay attentive and professional. I sip the coffee and jot notes as Davis raises the issue of how do we combat all this activity when in actuality no laws have been broken and no shots fired. Julie, with the opportunity to improvise and forecast possible activity, simply says that our entire operation is now hinged upon the amount and substance of intel The Queen of Hearts is able to transfer from the MBI brain-trust to us. She takes another question from Saunders, herself no slouch when it comes to internet technology and cyber warfare, about the counter measures we can be taking right now as we wait for what we all hope will be a steady stream of incriminating information from inside the MBI cell. 

“We can be ready to move at a moments notice, because if, as I suspect, they are about to add the final piece of the puzzle to their campaign, a high-value target is almost certain to take fire,” she flatly says, ”and then the advantage becomes ours because that is what you guys are the best on this fucking planet at stopping.” 

I wash down the suddenly formed lump in my throat with the last of the French Roast.