Chapter 485

I had made both pots of coffee when Troy and the President walked in.

“I was just getting ready to come see you as soon as I refilled my mug. How are things upstairs today?” I said.

“First the coffee then we will talk,” the President replied.

Of course he pulled up a chair by the pastries.

“I received a call from General Fillmore thanking me for your assistance yesterday at Minnesota. He explained that the Army personnel were ready to abandon the site after losing that much equipment right out of the gate. As usual, I hear that one of your teams supplied a solution to the problems,” the President said.

“Always be prepared, hope for the best, expect the worst; good rule to live by,” I replied.

“Speaking of being prepared, we were not prepared for your appearance at Columbia yesterday. We had discussed what would be the appropriate response, then it was put aside and forgotten in the rush to respond to everything else with the raids,” the President said.

“We were reminded after ZNN did two hours of the live coverage that the administration should have done more. You pulled our ass out of the fire on that one,” Troy said.

Ben had arrived just in time to join the conversation, “The world knows what every medal on your uniform was awarded for. The salute to that officer and the conversation must have played a hundred times. Even the news people were commenting about it. Then there was that statement to the reporter on the way out. Are you sure you are not a politician?”

“I have already answered that several times,” I replied.

“You better practice on that; there are at least a dozen Senate and House committees that have sent notification of subpoenas for you to testify,” Troy said.

“I thought they were going to adjourn for Christmas break,” I replied.

“They are soon so there may not be enough time until January,” Troy replied.

“There was nothing on Saif’s phone; his computer is heavily encrypted and may take a few days,” I said.

“Keep us informed,” Troy replied as they left.

My group was making their way in. It was time to start giving orders. I sent an email to the federal attorney and now a federal prosecutor had been assigned to my group.

“Please begin the legal process to immediately seize the six learning center properties, the farm in Minnesota and the New Jersey center. We have connected it to the attacks. I understand through third party contacts that Federal Judge Walter Haynes is receptive and supportive of the move and it is suggested that the writs be completed as soon as possible and processed through his court.”

Curtis Warren had sent me an email describing the procedure for getting the property and his contact with the judge.

Even though there were more memorial services going on today, I sent an email to the DHS and FBI directors for the six areas.

“Please expedite the forensic processing of the sites. Notify me immediately when you are finished. The centers are to remain crime scenes and in your control until the task force completes legal filings for final determinations,” I said in the email.

Seizing the Baltimore center was going to cause a fire storm. It was a large active center and only about half of it was damaged. They already wanted to get back into it and wanted their computer equipment and records back.

Friday morning - before the news conference - I had asked the legal team about seizing the financial assets of the six centers and the one that owned the Minnesota farm.

I found out that all that needed to be done was for me to sign the request and forward it to the Justice Department. That made it easy because now there were two Justice Department officials on my team. Their accounts had been placed in escrow by noon on Friday. I was surprised that there had been no screaming yet.

I called Ben into my office and closed the door behind him. For the next three hours we went through the questions that had been asked of Saif and the answers.

As we went through the information a second and third list was put together. When we finished, these lists were going to the DHS and FBI guys to see if the names were on any watch list.

Then I made a list of questions to ask Rafi Quastri tonight. Ben was working on his own list.

To help things along, Robert sent me the complete set of files after the codes had been broken and translated from Rafi Quastri’s desktop computers. It would take days to go through all of it.

There were several files that stood out; one was a ledger of all the payments to various groups and individuals detailing what the payments were for, including addresses.

Another file detailed payments from the Prince to Rafi Quastri along with account numbers and banks and the money laundering sequence they used from foreign banks.

One file was a whopper; it detailed the training camps with layouts and plans. Better yet, it included the location of the one in New York along with the ones in West Virginia and Monclova, Mexico.

It even included a list of people who had attended and were going to attend, the instructors and the classes they were going to teach. All the classes were terror driven. From kitchen explosives, how to make homemade igniters and detonators to manufacturing bombs using readily available gunpowder extracted from rifle and pistol ammunition.