This was not a “let’s settle down, everybody get comfortable” meeting. Baylor hadn’t offered anyone a chair. There were no sandwiches or coffee coming from food service. It was clear that Baylor was going to be no-nonsense.

The general referred to three sheets of paper his aide handed him. “Mr. President, we have an entire menu of options available to us.”

Keller liked that the general was already referring to Mark by his new title. Generals in the Pentagon were nothing if not political animals—Stark had clearly smelled which way the wind was blowing.

Baylor nodded. “Let’s hear them.”

“There are quite a few,” Stark said.

“Journey of a thousand miles,” Baylor said.

The general nodded. “Of course.”

He looked at the papers again. “In general, we assume that none of these options bring Elizabeth Barrett back alive. That’s an unfortunate side effect of the situation. As I indicated in the briefing downstairs, special forces units of all kinds are conducting raids throughout the Islamic world as we speak. None have borne fruit thus far. We have no idea if Elizabeth is still alive, and as more and more contact is made with terrorist cells, militias, and enemies of all stripes, the odds of her survival decrease rather than increase. They decrease dramatically, in fact.”

“Why is that, General?” Baylor said.

Stark shrugged. “Good question, sir. Mostly, it’s because we’re blundering around like a wounded bull in a china shop. Working at this speed, we have no way of vetting the intelligence we are getting. A lot of it is bad. Most of it is incomplete. Whoever has Elizabeth sees what we’re doing, and if we appear to be getting close, they will likely become spooked and simply kill her. Or they may kill her because right now the eyes of the entire world are watching. For the terrorists, an Elizabeth Barrett beheading video is a powerful recruiting tool.”

“Wonderful,” Baylor said. “So where does that leave us?”

“If I may be frank…” Stark began.

Baylor nodded. “Of course.”

“It leaves us with an opportunity. We are the angry bull, and justifiably so. If Elizabeth dies, and even before she does, we are now free to engage and destroy many of our enemies with complete impunity. Does Hezbollah have Elizabeth? We don’t know. They might. We are free to punish Hezbollah for any role they may have played in this fiasco. What about the Assad regime in Syria? The Taliban? Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. We could decide to pacify the Sunni Triangle from the air, rather than on the ground. We know that the Iranians have previously allowed Al Qaeda operatives to cross their territory unimpeded.”

Baylor listened, but didn’t say anything.