Chapter 18

My evening reading was quite an eye opener. As President and Vice President, I never had to deal with much more than a page, two at the most, of any report. I had hundreds of analysts on my staff to plow through it all, condense the things I needed to see into an economical report, and deliver it to me every morning before the coffee arrived. As Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, I needed to forego that until I was conversant with all of our operations, and that meant hundreds of pages of information for each individual operation and area of concern.

It was much later when an aide opened the door and offered me coffee and a selection of snacks. When I reached for the tray I saw that four hours has passed and I was still only partway through the stacks. Before she left, I asked her to send in the senior agent on the premises, and then dismissed her.

In less than minute a man I was introduced to earlier knocked and entered. He identified himself by name and task, and asked, “How my I help you, Mr. – I mean – Deputy Director?”

“You can start by losing some of the formality and calling me by my name. I am Tom. Remember that when we are working inside.

“The next thing I need to know is, who is running the operation at the port tonight? What time does it kick off, and who is taking me to the marshalling area?” Rather than dink around, it made sense to simply take charge and let the whole Department know I wasn’t about to hide out inside, then take credit for their work.

The agent stammered for a little while, and then admitted that the operatives had already left to join up for the raids.

“That’s nice,” I said, calmly. “Thank you for the information. Now send in my protection detail.” I simply went back to work without engaging in any more useless banter. He didn’t intend to help and would have to be taught to lose that from his repertoire or get fired.

Apparently my detail was not far from my office, because they were inside with me almost before the guy got out the door. “Mr. Jones we are heading to the Port of New Orleans to offer assistance to the raiding party. Obviously the current staff didn’t think to read me in before the teams took off, so you need to find out where we’re going and get me there, pronto.” Mr. Jones didn’t argue. He nodded to the other three agents and stepped out to light some fires under the internal group.

It took a few minutes but there was an epiphany of sorts among the staff when it was apparent that I not only intended to attend the raid, but take part in it. Once they got on the same page with me, weapons and flak jackets appeared, along with radios, helmets, and a squad of agents to assist us. I was pleased to get everybody working together on such short notice.

The Southern office had a number of armored vehicles on hand, and we commandeered the nearest one to take us to the raid. Our arrival set off some fireworks among a crew used to doing things however they chose, without interference. Once I arrived there was tension between my protection leader and the agent calling the shots on the ground.

“We will stay out of your way, Agent, but you will loop us in on all communications and keep me up to speed on the activity.” I said that clearly, without threat, or anger in my tone. The agent in charge simply nodded and ordered another agent to see to our needs. He would have moved us beyond a reasonable distance from the action, but I pulled rank and firmly instructed him in how and where we would be during the event.

It was a good thing.

Sometimes raids go off without a hitch. Sometimes raids are trouble from the start. This raid was destined to become a complete screw up from jump, and without the extra guns provided by my protection detail and me, a number of our people would have gone to the nearest morgue, instead of home that night.

We listened to the teams coordinate action, relying on the agent assigned to keep us up to speed for details and explanation as we went. It seems that someone had shared our intentions with the enemy, because once our crews were ready to pounce all Hell broke loose.

The radio went from calm and quiet to shouting in a split second. We heard agents on all sides of the ship reporting that they were taking fire at the same time. Over and over agents called for help. The assault leader called for helicopter support and reported that they had agents pinned down without any hope of rescue.

My team leader attempted to drag me out of the area for safety, and I grabbed him by the collar and shouted, “Get your head on straight! We are moving in and offering cover while our men retreat out of rifle range. Now form up and let’s go!”

My team of six agents moved with me directly towards the worst of the shooting. Instead of obsessing with my safety, they reverted to combat mode, and we moved with discipline into position to do some damage. With six well-armed agents and a couple of machine guns, we were going to be fine. I could see that we would have to direct fire to keep our attackers heads down while our side reformed and figured out how to proceed. It was my hope that adding automatic gunfire from an unexpected direction would buy our guys time to escape.

It worked, but drew a brutal response from the ship. Once our forward teams were safe, we were suddenly the ones in need of rescue. That was not unexpected, and the agent on my right fired a rocket propelled grenade into the spot where we thought it would do the most good. When it exploded the shock of the explosion had barely ceased when the screams of the wounded took its place. When your side is screaming like little girls, from shrapnel caused by a grenade going off nearby, it does tend to take the starch out of your sheets. We bought ourselves some time to find better cover.

That was the first good news of the night, so far.

The second piece of good news came when a Homeland Security assault helicopter opened fire from far above, blanketing the hostiles with gunfire. With our attackers concerned with survival from the airborne threat, howling from the grenade attack and taking fire from in front, we retreated a safe distance and joined up with the raiders.

Since our goal was to take those bastards down, we used the continued fifty-caliber, helicopter assault as cover to organize a second attempt from the blind side of the ship. We weren’t expecting to run smack into a group of Muslim fanatics attempting to escape, using the shooting to cover their tracks. Both sides raised their weapons to shoot at the same time.