Chapter Twenty-five

The Secretary of Defense met with the President aboard Air-Force One. It was early on the morning after 9-11, and the day had already reached international tension. The Libyan Embassy was attacked by men claiming Americans had ridiculed Mohammed in a movie, and they wanted blood. Several Americans were dead, including the ambassador.

“Good morning Leon.” The President looked tired. “What’s the situation?”

“Danger,” replied the secretary. “Some low-budget movie depicting Mohammed as a fool, a philanderer and a religious fake was produced last year and it’s finally making the rounds.”

“Last year?” asked the President. “Why so troubling now?”

“Some asshole translated it into Egyptian Arabic last week and put it up on youtube.”

The President rolled his eyes. “What do we know?”

The secretary pulled out some notes. “It was written, produced and directed by Egyptian American Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, using the pseudonyms of ‘Sam Bacile’ and ‘Alan Roberts’ and financed by his family. Nakoula is a convicted felon who wrote the script while incarcerated in federal prison for bank fraud. Yesterday, that lunatic pastor Terry Jones premiered it for his church in Florida, and blogger Morris Sadek, whose Egyptian citizenship had been revoked for promoting calls for an attack on Egypt, posted it all over the web.”

The President thought for a second. “What else do we know?”

“Men showed up at the embassy yelling and cursing America, burning our flag and doing the usual rigmarole, but then they left and came back with RPG’s and mortars. Ambassador Stevens and several other staffers were killed. On the bright side, witnesses didn’t drag their bodies thru the streets, they took them to the nearest hospital.”

The President thought again. “What do we think?”

“This doesn’t look like a spontaneous Libyan uprising, it looks more like a flash mob…the CIA kind. They knew security was lax, what windows to fire RPG's at and where Stevens was inside the building. The protestors today are regular people unlike the guys that waged the attack, and Libyans are putting up memes of themselves on Facebook apologizing to America.”

"Did Stevens know something he shouldn't?"

"That, I don't know," replied the secretary.

“Hmmm…do you think we’re still dealing with our little ‘problem’ over there?” asked the President.

“In my opinion, yes, I believe these are rogue elements of the CIA acting on extreme right-wing objectives in the middle-east. If there ever was any truth to al-Qaeda being created by the US, this could be proof. They want war, and more American martyrs on 9-11 would be a great place for them to regroup. This was a military operation arranged around the film with full intent of enraging Muslims all over the world.”

“What if it goes deeper than that?”

The secretary stared at the President. “What do you mean?”

“Julian Assange is sitting in an embassy,” said the President. “If a handful of people can destroy a US embassy like it was nothing and escape, what would stop others from doing the same in England?”