Free Red Cell Seven by Stephen Frey

Walter Reed. All six attacks would have been catastrophic and would have caused major loss of life within United States borders. Two of them would have made 9/11 look small in comparison. And both of those attacks were being planned by groups who absolutely had the human assets, the financial capability, and the operational experience to execute them.” Bill paused. “No one outside RCS ever knew about them or what we did to stop them. Until now.”
    “Do tell me about those…attacks.”
    Troy heard cynicism in Dorn’s voice again.
    “No,” Bill answered stubbornly.
    “Why not?”
    “I want you to maintain that genuine deniability I mentioned earlier.”
    “Telling me about the attacks won’t jeopardize that. Last I heard it’s pretty tough to get me to testify.”
    It seemed to Troy that the president was pressing his father because he didn’t believe him. Nothing had been said to that effect, but Troy could tell Bill also figured that was the impetus behind this line of questioning.
    The room went deathly still again as Bill and Dorn glared at each other.
    “There’s a town on the west bank of the Hudson River called Nyack,” Bill finally continued. “It’s about twenty-five miles north of New York City.”
    “I’m familiar with it. Its nickname is ‘Your Gem of the Hudson,’ and it’s actually a village, Bill, not a town. It’s in the town of Orangetown.”
    “Anyway,” Bill continued, “there’s a nuclear power plant north of there—”
    “Which is actually in Clarkstown,” Dorn interrupted. “That’s the town north of Orangetown.”
    “Thank you for the geography lesson, Mr. President, but—”
    “Are you telling me terrorists were planning to attack the Nyack nuclear power facility?”
    “And destroy it in a way that would have created an immense and deadly radiation cloud.”
    “When was this attack supposed to have happened?”
    “Two summers ago. If the terrorists had succeeded, they would have put twelve to fifteen million civilians at risk. It would have been far worse than the situation at the Fukushima plant in Japan in 2011 that was caused by the Tohoku earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. It would have been even worse than Chernobyl.”
    “Do you really expect me to believe that—”
    “In August of last year,” Bill interrupted, “seventeen Somalis were placed in solitary confinement at a top-secret prison the CIA maintains outside Athens, Greece. I know you’re familiar with that prison, sir. The Langley boys told you about it during your second meeting with them. That would have been the trip you took across the Potomac immediately after you were elected to ‘tour the CIA facility,’ as it was termed, I believe.” Bill gestured at the president. “Ask Wes Dolan about those Somalis. He’ll tell you. When he’s done confirming all that, ask him how I could know about those men being sent to Athens. They were the ones who were going to attack the nuclear plant.”
    “That still doesn’t—”
    “Last spring we discovered three nuclear silos in the Ukraine that still had active SS-19s in them. There was a plot under way to fire them. I know you heard about that.”
    Troy’s gaze shifted to Dorn. He figured the president was going to come back at his father even more strongly on this one. Instead, Dorn slouched in the wheelchair, as if he were giving in.
    “The Russians were supposed to have made certain the Ukrainians had all those nukes out of the silos and destroyed back in 1996,” Bill continued, “weren’t they, Mr. President?”
    “Yes,” Dorn agreed quietly. “Red Cell Seven discovered those silos?”
    “You’re damn right we did,” Bill said proudly. “And we kept it out of the press. If reporters had found out that several senior Ukraine officials had been bought off by certain wealthy rogue elements in the Middle East, we would have had a public relations nightmare on our hands.”
    “And I would have had a political hurricane on my