The Recruit: A Taskforce Story by Brad Taylor

like the spread of Ebola in a wardroom of children. And his unit could do nothing about it.
    The thought made him sick, driving home the fact that the application of military force would never be decisive in this fight. The roots were too deep, and the siren call too sweet. No matter how many terrorists he prevented from individually killing, there was a pervading ability for ideology to transcend logical thought, spreading like a cancer through whole societies he would have otherwise thought normal, civilized humans.
    Because of it, the Islamic State had become the most powerful terrorist organization on the face of the earth.
    Encompassing broad swaths of terrain across Syria and Iraq, their brutality in the modern world was unheard-of. But, not unlike the history of the past, they cowed their opponents with an unparalleled ability to instill fear, using new social media grafted on twelfth-century barbarism to depict beheadings, crucifixions, torture, and mass executions, and in so doing recruiting waves of others to continue the killing.
    As much as Kurt would like to take the war to them, that wasn’t his job. The current fight was for overt conventional and special operations—something he had done long ago, but had given up for the secret war. A war he had thought he was winning. Now he wasn’t so sure.
    He was the commander of a Taskforce created after 9/11, designed to operate in the shadows outside of the established intelligence or defense architecture. In short, to operate outside of the law. The entire experiment had been an enormous risk—but deemed necessary due to the threat. They worked without legislative oversight, and routinely flaunted the constitution to protect US national interests—read: US lives—and, while Kurt had his qualms about creating such an organization, he’d agreed to head it up because the menace had been grave.
    Now, after nearly a decade of work, he wondered if it had been worth it. The threat had grown beyond grave, and they’d created an organization that could prove absolutely cancerous to US liberties. And for what? To see the rise of the most powerful terrorist organization in history ripping through the middle east like Genghis Khan?
    The light flashed above the SCIF secure door, and President Warren entered, followed by Kerry Bostwick, the director of the CIA, Alexander Palmer, the national security adviser, and the secretary of state, Jonathan Billings.
    They took their seats, and without preamble, a staffer brought up a digital photo showing four bodies lying facedown, dressed in orange, each with a grisly head positioned above the shoulder blades.
    President Warren said, “Everyone here?”
    Kurt said, “Everyone except for the vice president.”
    The Oversight Council was the sole body that approved Taskforce actions. With the exception of Easton Beau Clute, the chair of the senate select committee on intelligence, all were either civilians or in the executive branch. The president had wanted no part of politics interfering with the decidedly explosive operations the Taskforce conducted, and had made the decision to exclude the legislative branch.
    Clute had been read on because of a past operation involving his son and daughter. Both, while serving in the military, had been taken hostage and faced certain death. They’d been saved from slaughter by the Taskforce. Because of it, Kurt had no doubt about his loyalty.
    President Warren said, “Kerry, give them the damage.”
    The D/CIA said, “We have managed to introduce three assets into the architecture of the Islamic State. Their crypts are BOBCAT, LEOPARD, and COUGAR. The third from the end in the picture was BOBCAT, and he was the only one reporting.”
    Kurt thought,
Holy Shit. He
was
ours.
    “BOBCAT was a Kurd we’d recruited in Sulaymaniyah a long time ago, back when we were still in Iraq and still fighting against the Ba’athists and al Qaida. We activated him seven months ago, and he agreed to penetrate