Mission Compromised (13 page)

There was a large mahogany desk in the southeast corner beside a window that also overlooked the memorial to the first president. Beside the desk was a built-in counter that, judging by the wires running like spaghetti from fixtures in the wall, once held banks of computer terminals and phones. Against the interior wall was a large circular table with six chairs around it.

Everything in the room was covered by a thin film of dust, but there wasn't a single scrap of paper, nor so much as a paper clip, left anywhere in the entire space. Whoever had cleared out the office had even removed the picture hooks from the walls. The only thing in the entire suite that appeared to be out of place was the large fireplace built into the east wall of the room. It had a large, ornamental mantel above the brick face. Newman could imagine some senior government bureaucrat warming his fanny against the flames in that office a century ago.

“Nice digs. No wonder they were out to get him,” Harrod mused.

“Who?” asked Newman, feeling as though he had been reduced to monosyllables in order to learn anything.

“North. When all the systems are hooked up, this is the best office in the NSC besides my office,” said Harrod, gesturing. “It must have driven the striped-pants peons from State, DOD, and Langley nuts to have this prime piece of real estate occupied by a Marine lieutenant colonel.”

“Surely you don't mean to put me in here?” Newman asked.

“I do—but I'm not going to put you in the same predicament as your predecessor,” replied Harrod. “You're not going to be chairing any of those interagency groups like North did. Your job won't require you to cajole State and Defense and the CIA into cooperating in anything like those crazy schemes they cooked up back in the Reagan administration.”

“Well, what
am
I supposed to do in here?” asked Newman, his uncertainty evident again.

Harrod didn't answer the question. Instead he said, “Patience, Newman. Go down the hall to the men's room and get some damp paper towels so that we can wipe the dust off these chairs and sit down. Here's the combination so you can get back in.” Harrod handed Newman the three plastic cards they had used to gain entry to the office. “Memorize these things, then bring them back over and run 'em through the ‘confetti-maker' in the Sit Room.”

“Confetti-maker?”

“The microshredder. It turns paper and those cards into pieces so small that they can never be re-created. North had one up here, but the special prosecutor seized it as evidence.” Harrod chuckled again. “I'll have one installed up here tomorrow. Now, how about getting those damp paper towels?”

Newman did as ordered, and when he returned, he and the National Security Advisor began to wipe the accumulated dust off
two of the chairs and the top of the circular table. While they worked, Newman asked, “Why has this place been sealed up since 1987?”

Harrod, his beefy face beginning to redden from the physical act of wiping the furniture, replied, “I don't know the full story, but I'm told that nobody was ever certain that they understood all that North had done in this office. First, the NSC, FBI, and CIA all laid claim to all the paperwork; then the congressional investigators and the special prosecutors fought over it.

“The papers and stuff were finally boxed up and sent over to archives when the Bush administration left town in '93, but then the Attorney General told us that the FBI forensic people needed to keep the place from being ‘contaminated' and that they needed to come in here periodically and check for fibers, dirt, hair, and God only knows what else. I finally got tired of their fooling around and told the AG that we needed the space. I got the access codes last Friday. And here we are.”

The two men sat in the chairs they had just dusted and put their forearms on the now-glistening table. Harrod placed the file folder with its
TOP SECRET
label in front of them but made no effort to open it or show it to the Marine.

For his part, Newman wasn't interested in what had gone on in this office before. There had been a dozen books written about the Reagan administration's efforts to rescue hostages and help Nicaraguan Contras. As far as Newman was concerned, that stuff was ancient history; it didn't affect him. He was much more interested in what
he
was going to be doing here. As soon as the National Security Advisor paused for a breath, he said, “Let's go back to my last question. What am I going to be doing in here?”

Harrod was suddenly all business. “You are now the head of the NSC's Special Projects Office. In here,” Harrod gestured around the office, “you will have three assistants and an admin-secretary-classified records clerk to handle whatever paperwork gets generated. There won't be much.

“Your assistants have been handpicked, one each from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Army captain served in Delta with your brother. The Navy guy is a SEAL. The Air Force officer flies special missions aircraft. All of these guys served in the Persian Gulf War. They are waiting down the hall in Carol Dayton's office. She's the one who checked you in this morning.” Newman nodded but said nothing.

Harrod continued, “We don't have the secretary-admin person yet. I have asked the Pentagon and the CIA to send us a list of names of people with the right clearances so that we can pick one and get them detailed over here.

“All these people will work for you.
You
work for me.”

Harrod paused, so Newman jumped in. “OK, that's a nice chain of command, but, again, what exactly will we be doing in here?”

“As I told you over in the Sit Room, your job is to coordinate the implementation and enforcement of special sanctions imposed by the UN executive. The actual enforcement operations will be conducted by a thirty-eight-man group of handpicked U.S. and British specialists—consisting of twenty-seven Americans and eleven Brits, on loan from the Special Air Services by private arrangement between the President and the Prime Minister of Great Britain. He and our President are very close and in full agreement on all of this.

“The U.S. personnel are all on detail from Army Delta, Navy SEALs, the Air Force, and the Army's Intelligence Support Activity.
Except for sending you over here, the Marines decided they didn't want to participate,” Harrod concluded. Newman wondered why, but he said nothing. As the Special Operations coordinator at HQMC, he hadn't heard about a request for Marine personnel for this kind of unit. But before he could ponder the question further, Harrod opened the file folder with the
TOP SECRET label
and took out several sheets of paper.

Harrod began to read from one of the pages: “The International Sanctions Enforcement Group—we're calling it ISEG.” He continued reading, “The ISEG consists of a three-man headquarters element—a U.S. Army captain, a British SAS lieutenant, and a U.S. Navy chief. The group is divided into five, seven-man teams—we call them ‘ISETs,' which stands for International Sanctions Enforcement Teams. They are organized based on various regions of the world where the UN has a sanctions regime in place: ISET Alpha is assigned to Asia and the Pacific. ISET Bravo gets Africa; ISET Charlie has Eastern and Central Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean are the purview of ISET Delta; and finally, ISET Echo covers the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf region. Each of these five teams is headed by an American. The deputy team leaders are all SAS.”

It occurred to Newman that the five regional teams Harrod described pretty much covered most of the planet. “OK, Dr. Harrod, I understand the organization, but what do the regional teams in this Sanctions Enforcement Group actually do? Do they gather intelligence and file reports? Do they go out in the field and observe possible violations—what?”

Harrod looked up from the papers in his hand. “No, Newman. They make sure that those who
do
violate properly imposed UN sanctions do not
persist
in efforts to thwart international laws and the will of the international community.”

“Exactly what does that mean? Does it mean these teams go out and apprehend sanctions violators? Do they have the authority to kill people like Aidid?”

“Let me put this as straight as I can, Newman. Once the UN executive has determined that an international lawbreaker is repeatedly violating UN resolutions and is a threat to international law and order, and this international criminal refuses to surrender himself to the justice of the UN's tribunals in the Hague, then the ISEG is authorized to take whatever means necessary to stop the violations. As I said before, that includes people like Aidid, who so brutally murdered your brother. You will have total authority to ‘take out'—as you so colorfully phrased it earlier—such people. Do you understand?”

Newman did. And he suddenly realized why someone very high up in the Marine Corps had decided not to assign any young Marines to the Sanctions Enforcement Group. Newman knew that the Marine Corps had an inherent distaste for this kind of clandestine project because it came so close to crossing the line of Executive Order 12333 forbidding assassinations, signed by President Gerald Ford in 1975 and ratified by every president since that time.

If, as Harrod had explained, such acts were permissible when sanctioned by the UN and this new protocol, this ISEG team would be able to circumvent the executive order. And if what the National Security Advisor said was true, there was really nothing to keep Newman from killing the terrorist leader responsible for his brother's death in Mogadishu.

Harrod noticed that Newman didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. But Harrod watched the Marine's eyes, which told him all he wanted to know. When Newman didn't say or do anything, after a moment, Harrod said, “We don't have phones in here yet, so I'm going down the
hall to admin and get your colleagues. I'm sure Ms. Dayton has had them long enough to take care of all their paperwork. While I'm gone, go get some more damp paper towels and wipe off three more chairs. This will take awhile.”

“Wait a minute, Dr. Harrod. Before you get the others, who were those guys following me when I went home to change clothes? You said you would tell me later. Well, it's later.”

“Fair enough,” said Harrod. “They were part of the ISEG, specifically the European team. All five teams are here in Washington right now for training exercises. Part of their training requires that they be able to tail a target without being observed. Since you were able to observe them while they were following you, they apparently need more training.”

Before Newman could ask another question, Harrod said, “Look, I've got other things to do today besides answer questions that are going to get answered anyway over the course of this week. Get these chairs clean while I get the others.”

By the time Harrod returned with the men—all wearing civilian clothes and short hair—Newman had wiped down the remaining four chairs around the circular table and had started on the desk he would soon be using. The National Security Advisor brusquely performed the introductions without the benefit of military rank. “Peter Newman, this is Thomas McDade, Navy; Bartholomew Coombs, Army; and Daniel Robertson, Air Force. Sit down, gentlemen.”

The three each shook hands with Newman and sat down around the table. “Hi, Pete. I'm Bart,” said Coombs. The other two men offered their less formal first names as well. “I'm Tom,” said McDade, and “Call me Danny,” proffered Robertson.

Coombs, the Army officer, reached inside his suit coat and took out a small notebook and pen, as if preparing to take notes.

Harrod looked at the young Army officer with the same disgust Newman had witnessed all day: “Put that notebook away. I'll tell you if you need to make a record of something around here. Just pay attention.”

Coombs did as ordered, but his face began to color beneath his tan. Newman couldn't figure out whether it was anger or embarrassment.

Harrod continued. “You are here because each of your service secretaries has determined that you are the best people to carry out a very sensitive assignment here at the White House. I am told that you are all on the fast track in your respective services. If you want to stay on that fast track, you will be discreet about the activities you will coordinate. There can be no communications about your work other than to me or to others as I direct. You may not talk to your wives, parents, siblings, girlfriends, or boyfriends about this job. You shall not communicate back to your services about what you do here. If you do so, you will be fired, and I will see to it that your career gets derailed from that fast track. Am I making myself clear?”

The three newcomers all nodded. Newman noted that the three young officers were wide-eyed. He wondered if they knew the National Security Advisor's nickname.

“Newman here reports to me. You report to him. That's the chain of command. Here's what you'll be doing.” Harrod dug again into the file folder with the green
TOP SECRET
cover sheet that he'd been carrying since he and Newman had left the Sit Room. He pulled out a piece of paper and set it down on the table so that they all could read it:

 

TOP SECRET
NATIONAL SECURITY DIRECTIVE 941109

Date: November 9, 1994

Subj: United Nations Sanctions Enforcement

1. (TS) In accord with the Classified Annex to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1606 [RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION], the United States and the United Kingdom are designated as the International Sanctions Enforcement Powers.

2. (TS) The International Sanctions Enforcement Powers shall establish an International Sanctions Enforcement Group (ISEG). The Enforcement Powers shall provide such personnel, logistic, command, control, communications, and intelligence support to the ISEG as needed to carry out the mandates of the United Nations executive in accord with the Classified Annex to UN Res. 1606 and international law. The functions and activities of the ISEG shall be undertaken in such a manner that they do not bring discredit or disrepute to the Enforcement Powers or the United Nations executive.