The First Seal is Broken

An Isolated Incident parts I, II and III

Many years ago, news broke on a regimented time schedule, during the morning for evening papers and before midnight for the morning editions. Radio and television altered that, first over broadcast and then with cable; finally the internet made news an instantaneous proposition and social media dis-intermediated the journalism establishment. Agent Regan was about to experience this in all of its glory.

It had been several weeks since the highway incident and little more had been learned. The absence of forensic evidence was as frustrating as the lack of witnesses. Frank’s work cell rang before the morning alarm went off. He answered and immediately snapped awake at the sound of the deputy director’s voice asking “have you caught the news this morning”? He popped out of bed and grabbed the remote. The deputy director said simply “get your ass in here as fast as you can” and hung up. Frank turned on the TV and headed to the kitchen to get some coffee going.

From across the room he heard the anchor:

    We have reports of three similar incidents across three different states…

    A group has claimed responsibility for these terrible attacks…

He grabbed and opened his cellphone. The notifications were all pinging – e-mail, Twitter, text messages.

Frank’s thoughts collected as he poured coffee – the government was on the defensive, both literally and metaphorically. The attackers had made the first strike on the narrative, just as they had in bloody physical terms. The gauntlet had been thrown down in what they had given the media; they were attacking corruption. Corruption that the entire edifice of American government had given sanction. The victims, from that perspective, had all been victimizers; they had all been responsible for aggressive asset forfeiture (or legalized armed robbery as these vigilantes had put it). But now, instead of isolated attacks, there were simultaneous ones. This was a whole new dimension – there was not just planning, but scale to the operations. And they were ready to be public about what they were doing. Frank had an involuntary shudder.

He couldn’t just sit and think, he had been summoned, so he hit the shower, then shaved and dressed. He filled his travel cup and made his way to the office. Each second in transit, more media activity – mass and social – filled the void, spinning up a crisis.

The office was quickly working it’s way into mayhem. Frank would be briefing the Director and a couple of Deputy AGs on what he knew (which wasn’t all that much – and that wouldn’t go over well). A task force was initiated with higher ranking officers in the lead and Agent Regan found himself closed out of the circle that would have operational control despite none of them having any greater idea of just what was going on. Teams of agents were tasked – one to each site for forensics (all local LE were told to secure and stand-by), another team to work all digital analysis, a group to review all known groups both infiltrated and not, another to work on intel outreach; Regan was pulled into the team that would handle both public and internal government communications. Not bad he thought to himself, not in the inner circle, but damn close.