They left the settlement just after first light, when the morning air still carried the coolness of the Caucasian foothills. The eastern horizon glowed pale gold as the sun climbed above the ridges, setting the snowfields ablaze. Every fold of the mountains stood in sharp relief against the deep blue shadows of the valleys. They seemed impossibly close, as though one could drive to them before breakfast, yet the distance remained deceptive, the peaks forever withdrawing as the road advanced.
The Caucasus dominated southern Russia with the same indifference it had shown for millennia. Governments rose and fell beneath its slopes. Empires drew borders across maps only to erase them again. The mountains remained, vast enough to render every political ambition temporary. Villages, highways, railways, pipelines—even military bases—appeared insignificant against those ancient walls of granite and ice.
The highway toward Mineralnye Vody kept the range continually in view. Snow still clung to the higher elevations despite the lingering warmth of late summer. As the morning progressed, heat rising from the plains began to blur the lower slopes. Banks of mist formed along the valleys until the summits appeared suspended in the sky, detached from the earth itself. The great ridges dissolved into brilliant white masses that merged almost seamlessly with the clouds. Within another hour, the haze thickened until the mountains vanished altogether, replaced by an endless pale sky that gave no hint they had ever existed.
The road continued northward across the Stavropol steppe. Rolling hills gradually replaced the dramatic escarpments of the Caucasus. Familiar landmarks emerged one after another: Mount Camel, with its unmistakable profile against the horizon; Mount Bull; the rounded summit locals called Snake Mountain; and Iron Mountain, its wooded slopes dark even beneath the midday sun. For generations travelers had measured their journeys by these isolated heights.
They had departed before the dust began to rise from the asphalt. At dawn the fields shimmered with dew, and skylarks filled the air with constant song. Later, as the sun climbed higher, the chorus diminished to scattered whistles and the rustle of insects hidden among the grasses. By early afternoon the landscape had surrendered entirely to the heat.
Their battered Lada rolled into Mineralnye Vody beneath a white, unforgiving sky. Waves of shimmering air distorted the rail yards beyond the station. Freight trains sat motionless on sidings, tanker cars lined up beside pipelines carrying oil and gas south toward the Caucasus. Passenger trains arrived with families returning from Black Sea holidays, conscripts reporting to their units, businessmen carrying briefcases, pensioners visiting relatives. Nothing in the scene hinted that history was already beginning to shift.
The air smelled of dust, hot asphalt, diesel exhaust, and dry grass baked beneath the southern Russian sun. Cicadas droned from the roadside trees. The windows of roadside cafés stood open to catch whatever breeze might pass through. News bulletins spoke of sanctions, diplomatic disputes, military exercises, and another routine day in Vladimir Putin's Russia. People argued about pensions, wages, football, and the coming autumn.
No one in Mineralnye Vody—or anywhere else along that quiet highway—could have imagined that thousands of kilometers to the south, a chain of decisions had already begun that would soon alter the course of the twenty-first century.
The world they knew still existed.
It simply did not know that its remaining days could now be counted.
Their father had grudgingly loaned them his aging UAZ Patriot, warning them twice to keep off the unpaved farm roads if rain began. The suspension had long since given up pretending to soften the ruts, and every washboard stretch sent the vehicle shuddering from bumper to bumper. Before long they had abandoned any thought of making good time. The speedometer rarely climbed above forty kilometers an hour.
They drove through broad wheat fields already turning gold beneath the southern sun, past grazing cattle, abandoned collective farm buildings slowly surrendering to weeds, and the occasional sunflower field stretching toward the horizon. Here and there irrigation canals cut across the plain, but the rivers themselves were small and unimpressive. Villages appeared only every thirty or forty kilometers—clusters of brick houses, blue-painted fences, Orthodox church domes restored after decades of neglect, and roadside kiosks advertising bottled water, cigarettes, and mobile phone top-ups.
It was Sunday morning. The highway was unusually quiet. A handful of battered KamAZ trucks headed north, while the occasional Lada or Hyundai drifted south toward Mineralnye Vody. Otherwise the road belonged to them.
Dmitri, who was twenty-three and had always possessed more patience than anyone in his family, rested one hand lightly on the steering wheel. He could have driven another five hundred kilometers without complaint. Beyond the windshield the Caucasus dominated the southern skyline, snow still visible on the highest peaks despite the lingering warmth of early autumn.
His younger half-brother, Kirill, occupied the passenger seat but rarely remained there for long. Every few minutes he leaned across the dashboard to point at something outside—a military helicopter crossing the distant sky, a freight train loaded with armored vehicles, an eagle circling high above the fields. He scrolled endlessly through his phone until the signal disappeared, then peppered Dmitri with questions.
"Do you think they'll send you to Syria?"
"You think the VDV really jumps at night?"
"If NATO and Russia ever fought, who'd win?"
Dmitri answered only when necessary. Most of the time he smiled and kept his eyes on the road.
Kirill had just entered his second year at the secondary school in Pyatigorsk. Their father had resisted sending either of his sons away from home. The farm needed hands, not university diplomas. Dmitri had won that argument only through quiet persistence. He had never shouted. He had simply refused to let the matter die until his father finally relented.
He loved their village in the Stavropol countryside. During every holiday he returned to help with the harvest, repair machinery, and tend the livestock. For years he had imagined a future in which he might combine education with the family farm. Yet each passing year made that vision more distant. The world he encountered in the cities bore less and less resemblance to the one in which he had grown up.
Among the older villagers he was known simply as the student. Among the younger men he was the soldier, although he had not yet signed his contract. They joked that he spoke like someone from Moscow now, quoting professors and history books instead of weather signs and crop prices. Whenever he returned home, he instinctively exchanged clean jeans for work clothes within minutes of arriving, as though trying to bridge two increasingly incompatible lives.
His father seldom spoke against higher education anymore, but neither did he conceal his disappointment. Books did not repair tractors. Degrees did not bring in the wheat. Whenever Dmitri left for another semester, his father stood in the yard watching until the bus disappeared, looking less like a proud parent than a man wondering whether he had already lost his eldest son to another world.
The distance between them was widened by his stepmother, Marina. Practical, ambitious, and fiercely protective of her own children, she ran the household with unmistakable authority. Dmitri's older siblings had already moved away. Each visit home felt a little less like returning and a little more like calling on distant relatives.
University had changed him in other ways as well. He had grown up attending Easter liturgies, blessing baskets at Pascha, and crossing himself before long journeys simply because everyone else did. At university he encountered every imaginable opinion—Orthodox revivalists, atheists, liberals, nationalists, Marxists, and internet philosophers who seemed to construct entire political systems from YouTube videos and Telegram channels. Like many young Russians of his generation, he found himself surrounded not by certainty but by competing certainties, each claiming exclusive possession of the truth.
Yet none of these arguments seemed especially urgent.
Television spoke constantly of sanctions, NATO exercises, and tensions with the West. Syria appeared nightly on the news. Military parades celebrated new weapons. Politicians promised strength and stability. But in the villages of southern Russia those matters still belonged to another world. The harvest mattered more than geopolitics. Diesel prices mattered more than diplomacy.
No one on that quiet September morning imagined that somewhere beyond the Black Sea, decisions were already being made that would carry young Russian soldiers thousands of kilometers into Africa.
Least of all Dmitri.
The growing distance between Dmitri and his family had made the decision easier, but it could not be spoken of openly. He had told his father that he was returning to the university several weeks early to complete a research project before the autumn semester. Explaining what the project actually involved proved more difficult than inventing it in the first place. His father understood tractors, weather, and wheat yields. Universities remained a mystery.
During those final weeks of summer, little in their village suggested that anything beyond the ordinary was about to happen. The television in the kitchen spoke endlessly of sanctions, trade disputes, a heat wave in Europe, and the latest remarks from President Vladimir Putin. The evening news showed factory openings, road repairs, and, on every channel, the disappearance of Demi Lovato in Kenya. Reporters repeated that a multinational search team had been assembled, with helicopters and local rangers combing the savannah. Yet none of it felt immediate. Politics belonged to Moscow. Their lives belonged to the fields.
Nothing in Sablinskaya had changed.
The harvest continued. Tractors worked from dawn until sunset. Children rode bicycles through dusty lanes. Weddings filled the weekends with music and vodka. The only military presence consisted of the occasional convoy rumbling south toward the Caucasus or aircraft passing high overhead, too distant to identify.
No one in Dmitri's family expected to be caught up in anything larger than the annual harvest. His eldest brother was settled with a family of his own. Another worked construction in Krasnodar. Dmitri remained enrolled at the university, while Kirill still had school ahead of him. Military service was something that happened to other people, somewhere else.
Nor did the journey across the steppe suggest that the world stood on the edge of upheaval.
They crossed the Kuma River, passed beneath the railway overpass outside Mineralnye Vody, and entered the broad streets leading toward the station. Cafés were open. Petrol stations advertised discounted fuel. Holidaymakers with wheeled suitcases waited outside hotels for taxis to Kislovodsk and Pyatigorsk. The spa towns still welcomed visitors seeking mineral waters and mountain air, just as they had for generations.
Life possessed an extraordinary reluctance to acknowledge anything beyond the present.
They parked beneath an old elm beside a public fountain.
Kirill was to wait with the vehicle while it cooled. Dmitri stripped off his T-shirt, splashed cold water over his face, neck, and shoulders, laughing as his brother emptied a second plastic bottle across his back. He dried himself, pulled on a clean white shirt, slung a small backpack over one shoulder, and headed toward the railway station on foot, preferring the shaded sidewalks to the hot pavement.
Flower beds lined the station entrance, though the late-summer dust had dulled their colors. Beyond them stretched the familiar platform canopy with its painted steel columns wrapped in climbing vines. A warm breeze drifted along the tracks from the direction of the Caucasus, carrying the faint scent of hot rails and diesel fuel.
The station looked exactly as it always had.
Families queued for trains to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Backpackers compared itineraries. Business travelers stared at laptops over paper cups of coffee. Children tugged impatiently at their parents' sleeves, asking for ice cream from a nearby kiosk.
At another stand he bought a newspaper, then a second.
Standing beneath the canopy, he scanned the headlines.
The front pages spoke of the economy, sanctions, another round of diplomatic expulsions, and the disappearance of Demi Lovato in Kenya. Reporters said a multinational search team was combing the area, with helicopters, local rangers, and officials from several countries working through the heat and dust. Commentators debated whether she had been kidnapped, lost, or simply vanished from the convoy she had been traveling with. The story had already pushed everything else aside.
Nothing suggested that the day would become anything more than another ordinary stop on the way north.
Carefully folding the newspapers beneath his arm, Dmitri turned toward the ticket office.
He was weaving through the crowd when he heard his name.
"Dmitri!"
He looked up just as Sasha and Misha came toward him from the kiosk, grinning as if they had been waiting for the right moment to ambush him with a question.
The greeting lasted scarcely a second before Sasha pointed at the newspaper under Dmitri's arm.
"Who is Demi Lovato?" he asked. "And why is everyone in Kenya looking for her?"
Misha frowned. "Is she a singer?"
Dmitri laughed despite himself.
"Yes," he said. "An American singer. A pop star. She was on Disney when she was younger. The papers are making a huge deal because she's gone missing in Kenya, and there's a multinational team searching for her."
Kirill snorted. "I've never heard of her."
"Exactly," Dmitri said, folding the paper under his arm. "That's why I have to explain."
For the next few minutes he talked over the station noise, naming songs, films, and television shows until their blank expressions began, slowly, to give way to recognition.
Then Sasha glanced at the backpack slung over Dmitri's shoulder.
"So where are you really going?" he asked. "You said university, but you look like you're leaving for something else."
Misha's grin faded a little. "You're not going to Rostov for classes."
Dmitri did not answer at once.
The station loudspeaker crackled overhead. Somewhere behind them a train shuddered into motion, metal wheels shrieking against the rails.
At last he said, quietly, "No. Not for classes."
Sasha studied him for a moment, then looked away first.
"Then what?" he asked.
Dmitri tightened his grip on the newspapers.
"I'm going to report in," he said. "I volunteered for the army."15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOh9DYGOHtv
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It was true—they had met by chance once before.
Anna had been a first-year student then, still trying to find her place in the university, while Dmitri was already well known among the history faculty for taking ideas far more seriously than most of his classmates. Their first conversation had begun outside the university library after a lecture on twentieth-century Russia and somehow lasted until the campus lights came on.
After that they met whenever circumstances allowed.
Their walks through the parks of Stavropol or along the boulevards of Pyatigorsk became long conversations about history, politics, literature, and the strange uncertainty that seemed to surround modern Russia. Anna treasured those evenings. She had never before known anyone only a few years older who treated her opinions as though they genuinely mattered.
Even when darkness fell and couples around them drifted naturally closer together, Dmitri never took her hand unless necessity required crossing a busy street. She sometimes wondered whether it was shyness or discipline. Perhaps both.
Later, after Anna transferred to St. Petersburg for graduate study, they stayed in touch through long emails and occasional late-night messages. His replies were thoughtful, carefully composed, almost old-fashioned in an age of emojis and abbreviated texts. Though the city introduced her to professors, journalists, entrepreneurs, and people whose names regularly appeared in newspapers, she often found herself thinking about the quiet young man from the Stavropol countryside.
Three weeks earlier she had been leaving a metro station on Vasilyevsky Island when every screen seemed to be showing the same story.
AMERICAN SINGER DEMI LOVATO MISSING IN KENYA.
The report replayed endlessly.
A humanitarian visit.
A convoy.
Conflicting eyewitness accounts.
Search helicopters.
Kenyan police.
Foreign investigators.
No confirmed sightings.
For reasons she could not entirely explain, the story unsettled her. Perhaps it was because someone so famous had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened beneath her feet. Perhaps it was because the uncertainty itself seemed contagious. For days afterward she caught herself wondering how a modern world filled with satellites, drones, smartphones, and surveillance cameras could simply lose a human being.
During the long train journey south she found herself thinking unexpectedly of Dmitri.
Not because the two events were connected—how could they possibly be?—but because whenever the world became confusing, he was the one person she imagined would have an explanation.
The train rolled steadily through central Russia, then the fertile plains beyond Voronezh, and finally toward the North Caucasus. At nearly every major station she saw young soldiers boarding or disembarking. Some wore fresh uniforms that still held their factory creases. Others looked scarcely older than schoolboys, embracing parents who tried unsuccessfully not to cry.
Military service had always been part of Russian life.
No one regarded these departures as extraordinary.
No demonstrations opposed them.
No speeches predicted disaster.
The conversations on station platforms revolved around ordinary things—contracts, salaries, apartments, girlfriends, football, whether someone would be stationed near Rostov or farther east. The television screens hanging from station ceilings continued alternating between reports about the search in Kenya, economic news, and President Putin's latest meeting with regional governors.
Russia appeared entirely at peace with itself.
Yet Anna sensed something she could not name.
It was as though the country had paused without realizing it.
As though millions of people were continuing with perfectly ordinary lives while somewhere, far beyond their horizon, unseen machinery had already begun to turn.
When she saw Dmitri standing beneath the station canopy in Mineralnye Vody, newspaper tucked beneath one arm, backpack over his shoulder, she suddenly understood why she had wanted so badly to find him.
Not because she believed he could explain the disappearance in Kenya.
But because, for reasons she could never have articulated, he made the world seem less uncertain.
Now, hearing him quietly admit that he had volunteered for the army, that certainty vanished.
She searched his face.
"You're serious."
He nodded once.
"What unit?"
"I don't know yet."
"And after training?"
He offered the smallest of smiles.
"They'll tell me when it's time."
Neither of them noticed that the newspaper tucked beneath his arm had slipped open.
Across the front page, above the fold, the same headline looked back at them:
SEARCH FOR DEMI LOVATO ENTERS ITS FIFTH DAY.
Neither imagined they had just stepped into the margins of that story.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo4mB7oJ0RN
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Dmitri, standing there in his freshly pressed white shirt, looked more than ever like a son of the southern steppe. Weeks spent helping with the harvest had left his skin darkened by the sun. His short blond hair, bleached almost white by long days in the fields, caught the afternoon light beneath the station canopy.
Anna had embraced him the instant she recognized him. It had been impulsive, but not entirely. Somewhere during the endless train ride from St. Petersburg she had resolved that, if fate allowed this impossible meeting, she would not let the awkward reserve that had always existed between them return. Surely they would abandon whatever plans they had made, find a café, walk through the park, talk until evening.
Instead, Dmitri was making everything more complicated.
That familiar, thoughtful half-smile still rested beneath his light blond stubble. His blue eyes never stopped thinking. She had always admired that about him. Today, however, she saw something else behind them—a quiet determination that frightened her.
He had already made up his mind.
Without thinking, she gripped both of his shoulders.
"Dmitri... don't do this."
He looked at her without surprise.
"Don't leave."
The words came faster now.
"You don't have to prove anything."
The station around them continued its ordinary rhythm. A conductor blew a whistle. Children laughed somewhere near the ice cream kiosk. The loudspeaker announced another arrival from Rostov. Yet for Anna everything else seemed to recede into the background.
"You've worked too hard to get where you are," she said. "You've got your degree almost finished. You always talked about teaching... maybe graduate school. Why throw all of that away?"
He listened without interrupting.
She searched desperately for an argument that might reach him.
"What is this really about?"
He hesitated.
"I don't know."
"No," she replied quietly. "You do."
He lowered his eyes.
"The world feels..." He searched for the word. "...different."
She glanced at the folded newspaper under his arm.
"You mean because of the singer? Because of that story from Kenya?"
"No."
"But everyone is talking about it."
"I know."
She took a slow breath.
"People disappear every day, Dmitri. The news finds one story and turns it into the only story. In a month everyone will be talking about something else."
He remained silent.
She continued, almost pleading now.
"Look around."
She gestured toward the crowded platform.
"Families going on holiday. Students heading back to university. Businessmen worrying about contracts. Life goes on."
"It always does," he answered softly.
"Exactly."
"But sometimes it only looks that way."
The sentence lingered between them.
Anna frowned.
"You sound like you've already convinced yourself something terrible is coming."
"I hope I'm wrong."
"So do I."
She stepped closer.
"Whatever politicians say on television... whatever NATO says... whatever President Putin says... none of that has to become your life."
For the first time since they had met beneath the station canopy, emotion crossed his face.
"I've been thinking about that."
"And?"
"I don't think we get to choose as much as we'd like."
She laughed bitterly.
"That's exactly what people always tell themselves before history proves them wrong."
He gave the faintest smile.
"Maybe."
She folded her arms.
"So this is patriotism now?"
"No."
"Duty?"
"I don't know."
"Adventure?"
He almost laughed.
"No."
"Then what?"
Dmitri looked out beyond the station, toward the distant blue outline of the Caucasus.
"When I was a kid," he said quietly, "I thought history was something that happened to other people."
He looked back at her.
"Now I think history is coming."
Anna shook her head.
"History is always coming."
"No."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"This feels different."
For several seconds neither spoke.
Finally she said, almost in frustration,
"You've spent years telling me not to let television shape how I think. Not to let politicians manufacture fear. Now you're doing exactly that."
He considered the accusation.
Perhaps she was right.
Perhaps she wasn't.
At length he answered with a sadness that surprised even himself.
"I don't know what comes next."
His hand tightened unconsciously around the folded newspaper.
"But whatever it is..."
He glanced down at the headline about the missing American singer.
"...I don't think the world will stay the same for very long."15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT5bNEQtm5o
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TOP SECRET — EYES ONLY15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkQXzMbMp21
Russian Federation15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsKBc1KVBTw
General Staff of the Armed Forces15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC9jZfpNQZ7
Secure Presidential Communications Network
Tuesday, September 18, 201815Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmidYHgMtMZ
18:42 Moscow Time
COMMANDER, KAMINSKI AIR GUARDS TASK FORCE15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp3EQql6Sca
TO: PRESIDENT VLADIMIR V. PUTIN15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdhJ0e5cbLp
PRIORITY: FLASH
SUBJECT: MISSION REPORT
Mr. President,
I respectfully report that Operation LOVATO '18, as designated by General Orlov, has concluded.
The designated objective was located on the Maasai Mara National Reserve at approximately 1617 hours local time.
The mission has been completed.
Demi Lovato is confirmed deceased.
Friendly forces have disengaged and are proceeding according to the approved withdrawal timetable. Initial indications suggest no personnel have been left behind. Equipment accountability is underway.
Local authorities have not yet established the identity of the deceased. Public reporting remains fragmented, with early accounts describing an attack by unidentified foreign personnel. International media have begun carrying breaking coverage.
At present there is no public attribution linking Russian Federation forces to the operation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommends maintaining complete silence pending assessment of foreign intelligence collection and forensic reporting.
The General Staff anticipates immediate international attention once positive identification is made. Diplomatic consequences are expected to be severe if attribution occurs.
A comprehensive after-action assessment will be submitted under separate cover.
Mission status: SUCCESSFUL
Respectfully,
Colonel General Aleksandr Kaminski15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTDWTN25dHy
Commander, Kaminski Air Guards Task Force
HANDWRITTEN RECEIPT NOTATION15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB9rYlf1lk0
Received by the Presidential Secretariat at 18:47 MSK.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXPpFCRwMkN
Forwarded immediately to the President.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK6PBAkpKpC
No written response recorded.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnl1NCGdUG8
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U.S. EMBASSY NAIROBI15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqfgckIR87U
NAIROBI, KENYA
September 23, 2018
Mrs. Dianna De La Garza15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMiQceeChCx
Albuquerque, New Mexico15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4gPX1BVl3S
United States of America
Dear Mrs. De La Garza,
Please accept our deepest condolences on the tragic loss of your daughter, Demi Lovato. The staff of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi mourns with you and your family.
We are working closely with Kenyan authorities to confirm the circumstances of her death and to provide all appropriate consular assistance. In the immediate term, we recommend that you designate one family member or representative in the United States to serve as the primary point of contact with the Embassy so that information can be relayed clearly and without delay.
As we understand that you will be remaining in the United States and attending the funeral services in Los Angeles, please keep your telephone and email available, as our staff will provide updates as soon as they are confirmed by local authorities. If you or your family require assistance coordinating with the funeral home or with the designated representative handling arrangements, our American Citizen Services unit can help facilitate communication.
For the short term, we also advise that you retain copies of Demi's passport, travel documents, and any available medical or police reports, and that you avoid relying on unofficial information circulating on social media. Our consular team can help you understand what documentation may be needed and can coordinate with the appropriate Kenyan offices on your behalf.
Please know that you are not alone in this difficult time. The Embassy stands ready to assist you and your family in any way we can.
With sincere sympathy,
Robert F. Godec,15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCjzSaAINuq
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WASHINGTON, D.C.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxRDPIL80a0
September 23, 2018
PARTICIPANTS
President Donald J. Trump
Vice President Mike Pence
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Secretary of Defense James Mattis
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
National Security Advisor John Bolton
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford
FBI Director Christopher Wray
CIA Director Gina Haspel
U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Robert F. Godec (via secure video from U.S. Embassy, Nairobi)
[Secure connection established.]
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Mr. President, can you hear me?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Loud and clear, Bob. Tell me what you've got.
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Mr. President, approximately two hours ago Kenyan authorities completed the formal identification procedures. I regret to report that the deceased recovered yesterday on the Maasai Mara has been positively identified as Ms. Demi Lovato.
[Silence in the Situation Room.]
PRESIDENT TRUMP: One hundred percent?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Yes, sir. The identification was confirmed through multiple forensic methods conducted jointly with American personnel. At this stage there is no reasonable doubt.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Have her family been informed?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Yes, Mr. Secretary. Notification has been completed through the appropriate channels. Embassy personnel remain in close contact with Ms. Lovato's family.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Jeff, the FBI agents I told you to send—are they in Kenya yet?
ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS: Yes, Mr. President. The FBI agents you ordered me to dispatch are on the ground in Nairobi and have been integrated with the investigative team. They are working alongside Kenyan authorities and Embassy personnel.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Good. Keep them there. I want everything looked at.
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Mr. President, the Bureau team has already begun reviewing the scene with Kenyan investigators. They are preserving evidence and interviewing witnesses.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: What do we know about what happened?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Mr. President, we can establish the broad sequence with reasonable confidence.
Ms. Lovato's humanitarian party entered the reserve as scheduled. Communications ceased shortly thereafter. Search teams located evidence of an armed engagement over a wide area. Yesterday afternoon, Baran Talbani, a Kurdish rider assisting with the search, and private investigator Jack Mallory discovered Ms. Lovato's remains approximately three kilometers from the last confirmed position of her convoy.
Kenyan Rangers and local authorities secured the area immediately after the discovery, and the crime scene has since been preserved jointly by Kenyan authorities and U.S. investigators.
In addition, UN troops assigned to the regional security mission have been placed on alert to assist with perimeter control around sensitive sites, and U.S. National Guardsmen attached to the Embassy security augmentation detail are helping secure the compound and the airfield.
GENERAL DUNFORD: Ambassador, do we have any indication who carried out the attack?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: General, at this hour we do not have sufficient evidence to make a definitive attribution.
Numerous possibilities remain under active investigation, including extremist organizations, criminal elements operating in East Africa, and the potential involvement of a state-sponsored actor.
I want to emphasize that we have not reached a formal conclusion.
CIA DIRECTOR HASPEL: Any surviving eyewitnesses?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: A limited number, Director. Interviews are ongoing. Their accounts are broadly consistent regarding the professionalism and discipline of the attackers, but inconsistent regarding uniforms, language, and equipment.
JOHN BOLTON: Professional military?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: That is one working hypothesis.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: What's the mood over there?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Somber, sir.
This has become much larger than the death of an entertainer.
The Kenyan government is treating Ms. Lovato's death as an international incident. Crowds have gathered outside both Parliament and our Embassy. Churches, mosques, and community organizations have held public vigils throughout Nairobi. We've received condolences from governments across Africa, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
There is widespread concern that whoever was willing to carry out an attack of this magnitude may have intended consequences extending far beyond Kenya.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Are Americans safe?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: At present, yes, sir, though we have raised the Embassy's security posture and advised American citizens to remain vigilant pending further developments. The FBI agents you ordered Attorney General Sessions to send are helping us maintain that posture and coordinate with Kenyan security services.
SECRETARY MATTIS: Your recommendation?
AMBASSADOR GODEC: Mr. President, my recommendation is straightforward.
Allow the investigation to proceed without interference.
Preserve every piece of forensic evidence.
Coordinate closely with President Kenyatta's government.
And refrain from assigning responsibility until the intelligence and forensic communities are prepared to support that conclusion.
If this proves to have been the work of a nation-state, the consequences will extend well beyond East Africa.
If it proves to have been a terrorist organization, the international response will be equally significant.
Either way, the decisions made over the next several days will shape events for years to come.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Understood.
Keep us informed every step of the way.
And tell President Kenyatta... the United States appreciates everything Kenya is doing.
AMBASSADOR GODEC: I will, Mr. President.
[Secure connection terminated.]
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