Free Term Limits by Vince Flynn Page A

were more often than not disastrous in the long run.
    The president sat back in his chair and quietly cursed himself for not replacing Roach and Stansfield when he had taken over the White House. Garret had wanted both men replaced, and Stevens was sure he would be reminded of this as soon as the meeting was over. If we hadn’t had such a hard time getting cabinet members confirmed, Stevens thought to himself, none of this would be a problem.
    During the first six months of the Stevens administration, four consecutive cabinet nominees had been shot down. Three had had to bow out after intense scrutiny by the press revealed some minor misdoings in their past, and the fourth made it to an actual committee vote but was embarrassingly rejected. By the time the cabinet was filled, the administration had expended so much politicalclout and had received such a grilling from the press that they decided rather than risking another potentially embarrassing confirmation hearing, they would be better off leaving Stansfield in charge of the CIA until a more opportune time arose. The president was coming to the realization that he had waited too long.
    Stevens looked at Kennedy, the CIA’s terrorism expert. “Dr. Kennedy, what is your opinion?”
    Kennedy had the highest IQ in the room by a significant margin. The thirty-eight-year-old mother of one had a Ph.D. in Arabic studies and a master’s degree in military history. The doctor leaned forward and took her glasses off. Her sandy brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing one of her trademark pantsuits. She placed her arms on the table and started to speak in a confident tone. “I would have to concur with Special Agent McMahon. The men who conducted this operation are either terrorists, hired assassins, or military commandos. My assumption is that it was the latter of the three.”
    Garret blurted out, “What makes you so sure about that?”
    â€œI think they were military commandos because Mr. Burmiester is still alive.”
    Garret’s face squeezed into an irritated frown. “Mr. Who?”
    â€œMr. Burmiester, the man who lives across the street from Congressman Koslowski. If the people who ran this operation were terrorists, Mr. Burmiester would be dead. Terrorists do not go to the effort to anesthetize people who are in theirway. They kill them. If terrorists did this, Mr. Burmiester would be dead as well as the woman who was walking in the park. These murders were committed by military-trained commandos.
    â€œTerrorist and military commandos go through very complex training, and on the surface most of it is similar, such as hand-to-hand combat, demolition training, firearms training, et cetera. However, they are trained very differently in objective and operational planning. Terrorists do not care about human life. They operate by a different set of rules. Terrorists are trained to take out their target in a way that is usually very violent. The more violent the better. When they kill, they try to strike terror into the minds of the public. Hence the label terrorist. They use car bombs or they machine-gun people down with absolutely no concern for innocent lives.
    â€œCommandos and assassins, who are almost always ex-commandos, are trained to kill only whom they need to, and to do it as quietly and quickly as possible. Commandos operate within certain moral parameters. There have been occasions, during times of war or national emergency, when those parameters were bent, and military commandos have killed an innocent bystander. This, however, is the exception to the rule, whereas with terrorists, killing innocent bystanders is the operational norm.
    â€œWhen we look at conducting an operation like this, we choose our targets and then decide what is the best way to kill the least amount of people and get our assets out safely.”
    Garret was irritated by Kennedy’s confident tone. “You seem awfully