Chapter 482

I made one more call, “General Fillmore, given the events of last night you can proceed with the farm raid any time you want. We are still looking for Saif”s computer to see if he left any diagrams on it. You may want to wait until Monday; hopefully, we should know something by then.”

“Monday would suit the teams better, many are on leave for the holidays and do get back on Monday,” he replied.

“Give me a time Monday when they are going to begin and I will try to be there,” I replied.

With ten minutes to spare I walked into the Oval Office to meet with the rest of the VIPs to establish the pecking order for the press conference speeches.

The only good thing that came to mind as I followed the group of VIPs out to the rose garden was it was an unusually warm day for Thanksgiving.

The President spoke first.

“Thanksgiving Day is traditionally about friends and family, to celebrate and enjoy the bounty of nature in food and friendship.”

“Today we are filled with sorrow and fear from the events of the last few months. As you know there were six massive raids last night. Those raids were ordered by the terrorist task force.”

“There were many agencies involved and there has been one person keeping everyone pointed in the right direction. There is no one better qualified to put the pieces together for you than the chairperson of the task force.”

“Ambassador Jones, you have the podium.”

I was just stepping forward when an agent handed me a sheet of paper that I quickly read and handed to the President, who responded with, “YES” and a fist pump.

“First, I have to give credit where credit is due and that is to all the agencies that have worked 24/7 to put together last night’s raids; the FBI, DHS, CIA, NSA, ATF, DEA, the border Patrol and the JBG intelligence group.”

“Last but in a major role were the Minnesota, Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Indiana and Maryland state police SWAT teams. I also want to thank the Gainesville, Raleigh, Lexington, and Columbia city police for the use of their SWAT teams.”

“Sadly, officers from that list paid the ultimate price to protect the public,” I said.

“For a quick overview; the terrorists were going to target six college football games today, with ten suicide bombers and automatic weapons at each stadium.”

“The six college games were the Seminoles / Gators, at Ben-Hill Griffin stadium at Gainesville, Florida.”

“The Cardinals / Wildcats at Kroger Field in Lexington, Kentucky.”

“Penn State/ Maryland at the Capital 1 stadium in Baltimore.”

“Tar Heels / Wolfpack at the Carter Finley stadium in Raleigh, NC.”

“Hoosiers / Purdue Boilermakers at the Ross Ade stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana”

“The Clemson Tigers / SC Gamecocks at William Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina”

“That explains the locations of last night’s raids. Weeks of intelligence and following leads in the search for Saif Alawai al-Jawfi finally paid off, and in the process closed one avenue for entry of the terrorist pipeline into the US.”

“Back to the raids; thirty officers lost their life last night, sixty-five more were listed in critical condition another sixty-seven have less serious injuries. This morning twenty of those on the critical list were upgraded to serious.”

“There were 150 terrorists killed in the raids. At this point in the investigation, we have to assume all the suicide bombers and fighters were killed. It will be days before we know for sure. With a positive DNA result we do know that Saif Alawai al-Jawfi is one of the dead.”

“One last piece of information; the task force rushed advanced surveillance equipment and hundreds of personnel to those games today to prevent as many of those bombers from gaining entry into today’s games as possible.”

“Additionally, if you are going to any of the football games, I would advise everyone NOT to carry any weapons of any kind, even if you have permits for them. Make no mistake, every police officer in the nation is on high alert and will take no chances.”