The phalanx code, p.7
The Phalanx Code, page 7
Not with Dagger team.
“What’s going on?” Amanda asked, stopping next to Drewson.
“The general isn’t sure he wants in on the mission,” Drewson said.
Blair looked at me and said, “How could you not? We came here because of you. You are the one we want to lead us to defeat Phalanx. Everyone has been talking about General Sinclair this and General Sinclair that. He’s our best hope against the weaponized Big Tech and technofascism. You’re walking away from the people you love? Who love you?”
“I’ve never walked away from anyone. I get it that you view this situation as good versus evil. And I understand the importance of your project Optimus, I think. It is a good thing to empower people with more control over their internet and financial environments. But how do we stop a monolith like Phalanx that is embedded like a tick in our own government, not to mention other governments around the world? China, North Korea, Iran? We’re hiding in a mine shaft for crying out loud.”
“You’re the general,” Blair said. “Think of something. We came here because Mitch said he was getting you out and that you would help us. Emily is dead. Evelyn has been kidnapped. I survived, barely. Others are at risk as we stand here. If you protect us and allow us to finish our rollout of Web 3.0, then all we need to do is decouple Phalanx from China and these other governments, maybe even our own government.”
“We will not attack our own government.”
“These are evil people, General!” Blair snapped.
“You don’t get to tell me about evil, Blair,” I shot back.
“Fine,” Drewson interrupted. “Then cut the head off the snake and get Blanc. But understand that Phalanx’s rogue government contractors are sucking up every communication in the world using LanxPro software and artificial intelligence and selling it to the Chinese. Combined, the algorithms triage information at unimaginable speeds. It is the nerve center of the global security state. I brought your team together because you are the one person that everyone believed they could count on to carry this torch, to defend the people of this country against the all-seeing eye of the security state and Phalanx’s oppressive tactics.”
By now, Mahegan, Matt Garrett, Patch Owens, Zion Black, and Jeremy West had walked in and were listening to the conversation. These were my protégés and they, as always, watched my every move and scrutinized my every word.
“As you see with this technology, General,” Drewson said, sweeping his hand over the communications gear on the table. “Blanc and Phalanx are working with the Chinese to infiltrate the US government. It’s the end of our country as we know it if they succeed.”
“That’s not news,” I said. “The Chinese have been after us for decades. And Blanc wouldn’t be the first company in the world to do business with China.”
Drewson pointed at the monitor where a map of Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, and Colorado suddenly appeared. There were three locations highlighted. One was the Utah Data Center just southwest of our location by 270 miles. Another was Warren Air Force Base in the southeast corner of Wyoming on the border with Colorado. The last was Grand Forks Air Force Base on the eastern edge of North Dakota, overlooking the Red River border with Minnesota.
“What do all three of these locations have in common, General? Any idea?”
“The DB prison library was a bit outdated, but I know enough about the nuclear and drone missions at Warren and Grand Forks,” I said.
“China has bought thousands of acres next to all three,” Van Dreeves said. “They’re eavesdropping.”
“Bingo. The navy brig must have been more current,” Drewson replied.
“You’re saying that the Chinese have built listening stations next to some of our most sensitive bases?” I asked. “To what end?”
“I’m saying Phalanx and China are partnering on data collection for the most nefarious scheme possible,” Drewson replied.
“Which is?”
Drewson paused. “That’s what the Phalanx Code is all about, but I’d prefer the president tell you.”
8
DREWSON LED ME TO a room that had an eighty-six-inch high-definition monitor bracketed to the wall. I sat in a standard office chair behind a sleek white table. After a minute or two, the monitor blinked to life and President Kim Campbell’s face filled the screen. Her normally perfectly coiffed blond hair was disheveled, but her sharp green eyes stared back at me. She was wearing a dark blazer, white blouse, and a red-and-white brooch shaped like a tiger. Her face was stoic and weary. The room was dimly lit and she spoke in a husky whisper.
“Garrett,” she said.
“Madame President,” I replied.
“Thank you for saving Blair. Though she and I may disagree on many things politically, she is still my daughter.”
“She’s a quite capable young woman,” I said.
“But yet, here you are doing my bidding again,” she said.
“We have a lot to catch up on. Why the FBI raided Figure Eight Island last year. Why you locked me up in prison. You know, small stuff.”
She put her head in her hands and looked up at me.
“Garrett, I am talking to you on a burner smartphone that is connected to the Washington, D.C., Wi-Fi network from the balcony of my bedroom in the White House.”
In the past, I had a burner phone myself that was point-to-point encrypted with her phone. We used it for communication about in extremis missions she needed Dagger team to execute. The FBI had my phone now and most likely knew what its purposes had been.
“Very well. Blair is fine. She’s also … determined. She and some others believe that there’s some epic struggle between good and evil happening here. And that you’re, at least on the surface, part of the evil.”
“Please. Every daughter hates her mother.”
“That is between you and Blair. As for me, I’m evidently retired, and I’d like nothing else than to go live in the mountains of North Carolina or Virginia and be off the grid. Unless you can convince me otherwise, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“First, there is no more ‘off the grid.’ Blanc will find you in ten minutes. Just look at Blair’s Secret Service team. We got the word they were killed about the time the head of Secret Service notified me she had been rescued. But those poor agents. Shot in the back of the head.”
She paused. Her eyes were cast downward, mournful. I said nothing.
“Anyway, if you’re helping Mitch, you’re Blanc’s enemy. And because you’re you, the big bad Special Forces general, you’re a threat to Blanc. Mitch, by the way, made a big play for you and your team to be free. Called in favors. I was happy to retire you, though I still need your services.”
“Jake blew a ten-foot hole in the wall of the Fort Leavenworth DB. That’s a favor?”
“Semantics,” she said. She was a no bullshit woman who didn’t get wrapped around the axle of the past. I had to give her that. “I ordered the SecDef to sign your discharge papers. Honorable discharge. Full pension. Keep your three-star rank. That was the best I could do. Randy and Joe same deal, except of course they are sergeant major rank and not generals. Lucky them.”
“Thank you for at least honoring my team’s service. I never expected a gold watch, but I also never expected to spend the last year of my career in jail—and for what? Serving my country?”
“I was protecting you, Garrett. So many rats in our government want you dead. The world is changing. There’s little hope of coming back from this abyss. Maybe you’re the last hope? I think that’s what Mitch sees in you. If he can disable Blanc’s grip on our government with this Web 3.0 stuff, we can fight back against the others.”
“But why? From where I’m sitting, you’re all in this together. One big monolith that shafts the little guy every chance possible.”
“You know that’s not me. Anyway, Blanc has moles in our government. Everyone but you and me seem to be on the take. In effect, our government is being run by unelected bureaucrats who sign deals with other countries that bind us in ways that have real impact.”
“You’re the president, fix it,” I said.
“If only it were that easy. This task is geared more for a warrior like you than a politician like me,” she said.
“And what task is that?”
“What Mitch needs you to do. Protect his people so that he can finish the Web 3.0 build-out without Blanc playing Whac-A-Mole and destroying everything Mitch does. Giving the power back to the masses with decentralized Wi-Fi that isn’t controlled by big tech is the only hope we have of unifying the country. If you help Mitch finish his project, you in effect decouple the liaison between Blanc’s government moles and our national security apparatus. You save the country, Garrett.”
I hadn’t thought of the situation as she just described it. On one hand, she knew there was nothing more appealing to me than defending our country. On the other, she knew me well enough to see that I could be understandably jaded about public service after the last year in jail. Legions of brave men and women had died defending the Constitution. If I could honor their sacrifice by helping to neuter big tech and shore up the foundations of our republic, then I was listening.
“I’m still here,” I said.
“I thought you might be. We may not be the last patriots, but we’re damned sure going to do everything we can to preserve this union.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “True patriots.”
“The first step is to find Evelyn,” she said. “You need to get her. Mitch tells me that Blanc snatched her. Not sure why. For all the reasons we just discussed, I can’t really have my intelligence team run this to ground so I need you to. Diplomatically, she is important to the solution in disabling Blanc’s empire because she knows him. French circles and all that. Also, Mitch tells me there’s a code or something she was trying to break.”
The president was adept at plucking my strings, and she almost had me. Almost.
“Slow down,” I said. “I hardly appreciate that you took away a year of my life. If Melissa were still alive, she would put her finger in your chest and tell you to get your shit together. Before you start barking orders, at least honor her memory and apologize to me.”
“Melissa,” she whispered. She looked away from the phone. I visualized her staring out of the window at the Washington Monument and the National Mall, perhaps missing her friend, perhaps wondering why she had played a role in her death, if she had done so.
I had met Melissa in our church in Fayetteville, North Carolina. We dated in high school and were married after I graduated from West Point. While I was at the military academy, Melissa had attended Meredith College, an all-women’s liberal arts university. Melissa and Kim Campbell had been roommates and best friends when one of their classmates had died during a drinking game led by Campbell. My relationship with the president, through Melissa, presumably got me both thrown in jail and released from it. My suspicion was that Campbell believed that Melissa had told me about the murder investigation that the future president had been subject to after their classmate’s death. I did know about it but, of course, would never have used the information to disrupt Campbell’s presidential bid or for personal gain. I probably should have. Either strike first or be struck.
“Yes, Kim, try channeling Melissa and her belief that Good Wins. I had it engraved on her headstone in Vass. You should visit.”
The video went black for a few moments, and I wondered if she had disconnected. It wasn’t like me to demand an apology, but Melissa would have wanted the pain of the last year to resonate with her easily distracted, and sometimes dismissive, friend. The picture reappeared. She had moved and her face was shrouded in pixelated darkness.
“It’s not like that, you know, Garrett. I loved Melissa. I love you. D.C. is filled with vermin. My husband is banging everything that moves, and you are the one true loyal friend I have.”
“Had,” I snapped.
She gasped. “I’ve tried so hard to balance personal and professional and serve the country.”
“Try harder. The United States will be a subcontractor to China or to Blanc’s Phalanx if you don’t pull it together.”
“Garrett, I promise you on Melissa’s grave—”
“Don’t you dare, Kim,” I snapped. “Don’t you invoke Melissa’s name with any grand scheme that you might be designing. Melissa was about sacrifice. You’re about serving yourself.”
“That’s not true!” she shot back. “I have sacrificed. I have led this country through the most horrible advancements in technology and political partisanship! You try doing it. Take it on the chin every single day from the bloodthirsty press or bloggers or tweeters or random people that just make shit up every single day!”
She had a point. While my pain had been mostly driven by personal loss, she was attacked from every side on an hourly basis every day. The relentless media pressure gave her such little respite that she most likely tuned everything out. I was exhausted just thinking about it and decided to change the subject.
“Okay, you win, Kim.”
“We are in this together, Garrett. Think what you will of me, but I have always held our friendship dear. They wanted to kill you and prison was the safest place for you. Do you understand? I did that to save you and your men, whom I love dearly!”
A light sob escaped her breath. “God,” she muttered.
I sat there in disbelief, though what she said was entirely plausible. A long moment passed between us. Cycling through my mind were moments back in college flipping quarters into plastic cups filled with beer, Melissa on one side and Kim on the other. Infectious laughter through the night as we bonded. Both seeing me off to West Point from the Raleigh-Durham airport, Kim there primarily to accompany Melissa back to their Meredith College dorm and provide solace. Then her rise through the state senate and governorship of North Carolina. Annual trips to Figure Eight Island that we could barely afford, but which Brad and Reagan greatly anticipated each year. Then the cryptic messages as she was campaigning for president, including visiting my troops after missions. No media. No press releases. Just heartfelt thanks and an attempt to understand. Then the requests for advice after my appointment as the joint Special Operations commander. That advice then translated into classified missions with a small portion of my team.
“Like a dagger,” she had said before the very first mission. “In and out without leaving a mark.”
And so, it had begun. From those heady days of being the razor’s edge of American foreign policy to a musty prison cell in Fort Leavenworth’s DB. There had to be some redemption out there for both of us.
The truth was that Kim and I were deeply connected, and we both simply missed Melissa, who had been our foundation. Ultimately, I decided to place my trust in Melissa’s instinct to love Kim and hold on to her as her dearest friendship in her too-short life.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I understand. I’ll help,” I said.
She composed herself with a few brushes of her hands against her cheeks and eyes. Perhaps she had cycled through the same memories and come to the same conclusion.
“I, too, understand, Garrett. Never forget that I love you as my closest friendship, no matter what you think. As for Evelyn, ask Mitch. He has the details. And believe me when I say, I’m not on Blanc’s team. They kidnapped me in Dakhla, remember? They were going to cut my head off on camera. Thankfully, you saved my ass. Again. Remember?”
I did remember. Henri Sanson, the French executioner, had his blade raised above her and Evelyn’s heads before Van Dreeves and I had come barreling onto the castle balcony above the Sea of Dakhla.
“Yes. It seems you’re always fifty-one to forty-nine percent on the margin of whatever is happening. And yes, Madame President, I love you, too.”
“It’s how you survive in politics, Garrett,” she said. “Now go find Evelyn.”
The president disconnected and the screen went blank. Drewson stepped into the room, no doubt having watched the entire conversation.
He reached out his hand and opened his palm. Inside was the dog tag he had been twirling between his fingers. It was one of my grandfather’s from his Ranger unit. Typically, there were two, with both hanging loosely around the neck. One stayed with the body if the soldier was killed in combat, and the other was issued to the officer who had the unwelcome duty of burying the deceased.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL
GARRETT SINCLAIR
2ND RANGER BATTALION
FAYETTEVILLE, NC
“Evelyn wanted to discuss this with you. Your grandfather has a role here, I believe, but I’m not sure what it is. She wouldn’t tell me.”
I took the silver piece of metal and looped the chain around my neck.
“Where did she get this?” I asked.
He shrugged. “She told me to give it to you. No other explanation.”
“Where is she?”
He pressed some buttons, and a map replaced the president’s video chat screen. Drewson continued.
“You saw the video. A Phalanx team scooped her up in Denver. The flight plan says Biarritz. This dog tag should help you find her. We can track her.”
“Smart dust?” I asked.
“Something like that,” he replied.
“Can you get me to France?” I asked.
“I can,” he said. “But I don’t think your team will appreciate being excluded if you’re considering doing this alone.”
“If Misha has a chance of being on that list because of her capabilities, I want Jake to stay here to protect her. If Hobart and Van Dreeves want to stay and pull shifts with him, that’s fine. Jeremy, Matt, and the rest should go home. The war is over for them.”
Drewson stroked his chin with a long finger, a look of bemusement crossing his face. His intelligent eyes remained fixed on mine.
