Rorbach had served in two previousadministrations—on the staff of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security and as National Security Council liaison for counter-insurgency. He had spent years, too, as a military contractor in the private sector. Twenty-seven hours earlier, he had been asked to become operations director of what was now informally called the “Janus Task Force.”
H AROLD D E V RIES WALKED a pace ahead of Catherine Blaine down the second-floor corridor, their shoes echoing on the shiny tiles. DeVries was a lean, agile man who looked younger than his fifty-two years. He stopped before an electro-magnetic-locked SCIF, where he punched in a code on the keypad and then pushed open the door.
This SCIF was larger and more high-tech than the one at Andrews. Mounted on the encased metal walls were four fifty-six-inch plasma screens. Smaller desk monitors were at each of the twelve settings around the oblong cherry-wood table. The blue briefing booklets in front of the nine people in the room were identical except for the name stamped on the bottom right corner of each.
Blaine took her designated seat in the middle, nodding to several of the familiar faces. The gathering was a who’s who of top-level intelligence officials, including the director of the CIA, the head of the National Security Agency, the White House cyber czar and several deputy intelligence directors. Sitting opposite her, at the center of the table, was Vice President Bill Stanton.
Moments after she sat, Stanton flashed his toothpaste smile and glanced at the notepad beside his desk monitor. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Welcome,” he said. “We’re here for an emergency meeting of the Janus Task Force. And before we get started,” he added, nodding across the table, “we’d like to welcome Secretary Blaine into the room for this evening’s meeting.”
Blaine smiled politely at the Vice President. He was a big, cordial man with thinning white hair, an easy smile and an informality that she liked. No one ever called him William Stanton. Mr. Vice President seemed too formal. He was Bill, a folksy Washington veteran, prone to using colorful, idiomatic language and occasional malapropisms, which sometimes caused people to underestimate him.
“As you now know, folks, we’ve had another breach attributed to our friend Janus,” he said, and held up his blue briefing book. “We’vealso received some new intelligence over the past eight hours suggesting that an unspecified attack within our borders may be in the advanced planning stages. An attack related to, uh, these breaches. Harry will give us more specific details on that.”
Blaine opened her briefing book and scanned the details. There was an element of theater to having this meeting here, she knew. To show that Liberty Crossing was now where the nation’s seventeen intelligence agencies came together and solved problems.
“The purpose of this meeting,” Stanton added, “is to mobilize all resources, with an objective of locating Janus within five days. That’s the President’s directive.” He slowly made eye contact with several of those in the room, including Blaine. “This means we make it a twenty-four/seven priority. We pull out all our guns and cancel everything else. Clean the slates.” He made a strange sound in his throat. “I will head the task force and we’re making Thomas Rorbach the point man in charge of operations.”
Blaine looked quickly at Rorbach, who seemed slightly ill at ease being singled out but feigned a smile.
She skimmed through the pages of her briefing book: Background on Janus. Summary of his suspected whereabouts over the past decade. Chronology of the received emails, by date.
It didn’t take long for Blaine to recognize what was missing. They had left out the specific threats. There was no mention of the “natural disaster” warnings, of the actual subject matter in Janus’s emails.
The President’s
H AROLD D E V RIES WALKED a pace ahead of Catherine Blaine down the second-floor corridor, their shoes echoing on the shiny tiles. DeVries was a lean, agile man who looked younger than his fifty-two years. He stopped before an electro-magnetic-locked SCIF, where he punched in a code on the keypad and then pushed open the door.
This SCIF was larger and more high-tech than the one at Andrews. Mounted on the encased metal walls were four fifty-six-inch plasma screens. Smaller desk monitors were at each of the twelve settings around the oblong cherry-wood table. The blue briefing booklets in front of the nine people in the room were identical except for the name stamped on the bottom right corner of each.
Blaine took her designated seat in the middle, nodding to several of the familiar faces. The gathering was a who’s who of top-level intelligence officials, including the director of the CIA, the head of the National Security Agency, the White House cyber czar and several deputy intelligence directors. Sitting opposite her, at the center of the table, was Vice President Bill Stanton.
Moments after she sat, Stanton flashed his toothpaste smile and glanced at the notepad beside his desk monitor. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Welcome,” he said. “We’re here for an emergency meeting of the Janus Task Force. And before we get started,” he added, nodding across the table, “we’d like to welcome Secretary Blaine into the room for this evening’s meeting.”
Blaine smiled politely at the Vice President. He was a big, cordial man with thinning white hair, an easy smile and an informality that she liked. No one ever called him William Stanton. Mr. Vice President seemed too formal. He was Bill, a folksy Washington veteran, prone to using colorful, idiomatic language and occasional malapropisms, which sometimes caused people to underestimate him.
“As you now know, folks, we’ve had another breach attributed to our friend Janus,” he said, and held up his blue briefing book. “We’vealso received some new intelligence over the past eight hours suggesting that an unspecified attack within our borders may be in the advanced planning stages. An attack related to, uh, these breaches. Harry will give us more specific details on that.”
Blaine opened her briefing book and scanned the details. There was an element of theater to having this meeting here, she knew. To show that Liberty Crossing was now where the nation’s seventeen intelligence agencies came together and solved problems.
“The purpose of this meeting,” Stanton added, “is to mobilize all resources, with an objective of locating Janus within five days. That’s the President’s directive.” He slowly made eye contact with several of those in the room, including Blaine. “This means we make it a twenty-four/seven priority. We pull out all our guns and cancel everything else. Clean the slates.” He made a strange sound in his throat. “I will head the task force and we’re making Thomas Rorbach the point man in charge of operations.”
Blaine looked quickly at Rorbach, who seemed slightly ill at ease being singled out but feigned a smile.
She skimmed through the pages of her briefing book: Background on Janus. Summary of his suspected whereabouts over the past decade. Chronology of the received emails, by date.
It didn’t take long for Blaine to recognize what was missing. They had left out the specific threats. There was no mention of the “natural disaster” warnings, of the actual subject matter in Janus’s emails.
The President’s
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