The Land of the Free (20 page)

Admiral Howe’s phone rang just
after breakfast, and after answering he handed it to Frank.  “Hi Troy, what’s
up?”

“Yeah?  You’re kidding.”

“Did he explain how imp – four
days?”

“Alright, thanks.”

Having finished the call, Frank
turned to the group, shook his head in disbelief, then said, “Well guys, it
seems that Gerry Levine is too busy to deal with anything inclusive of
Armageddon for the next few days.  He’s on a fundraising blitz and nothing else
takes precedence.  Troy will keep pushing and maybe a donor can be recruited to
drive home the point with Levine, but at right now, it looks like your Roger
Snyder is all we have.”

“We still need to speak with Lyle
and Jess,” said John.  Turning to Howe, he said, “Our phones were taken when
they caught us.  Admiral, do you mind?”

“Not at all,” said Howe.  “Go ahead
and call from my phone.”

John called Lyle, and nervously
waited for an answer.  “Lyle, thank God you’re alright.

“And Jess?”

“That’s wonderful.  A relief.”

“A Trojan Horse?  We’d also
uncovered some clues pointing in that direction.  You’ve confirmed it for me.”

“I see.  Can you guess when they
might be deploying?”

“I was afraid of that.  We’ll need
you to corroborate our story.  How soon can you get to Washington?”

“Great.  Pictures would nail it. 
We’ll meet you at the airport.”

“My phone was captured by
Morningstar.”

“Okay, we’ll be careful.  Same goes
for the two of you.”

John hung up and stood in place for
a moment, smiling in relief at Lyle and Jess’ safety.  Then he turned to the
group and explained.  “They managed to get onto San Marcos, they checked out
the operation, and barely got away.  They saw shipping containers converted
into troop carriers, and others storing weapons.  There are as many as 100,000
troops on San Marcos, by their count.   And now they think there’s a Chinese
base in northern Mexico that could launch a supporting air and land invasion,
coincident with the capture of the ports and cities.  They’re in San José,
Costa Rica, and they’ll fly to Miami tomorrow morning with a connection to DC. 
They think the deployment from San Marcos could have already been underway when
they were there two days ago, so we’re talking a few days at most until the
landings start.  There’s just no way we can wait for Levine’s fund raising trip
to finish.”

“So can Snyder get us into the
White House?” asked Frank.

“Probably not,” said Howe.  “But
he’s sure to have some useful information, and maybe some useful contacts too.”

Stanley Howe made a phone call, and
spoke for a while.  When he was done, he too was frustrated.  “Snyder’s been
swamped and is rarely home other than to sleep.  It looks like they dropped a
project he was working on and gave him a pile of busywork that requires his
exclusive attention.”

“You can never tell with
government,” said John.  “But it’s just possible he was on to something, and is
being kept busy so he doesn’t finish it.”

“Glad to have been of help,” said
Millie, who then excused herself.

“That’s a fine woman you married,”
said John.

“She’s always had my back.  When I
was deployed, she stayed plugged into the politics of the Navy as much as she
needed.  She kept the knives holstered that would otherwise be in my back.”

…

“Howe speaking.”  Stanley Howe
answered the evening phone call, and his eyes lit up as he listened.  “Roger! 
I’m so glad you found the time to call.  We need to see you urgently.”  They
spoke for a while longer then Howe hung up the phone.

“Since we’re going to DC to pick up
your friends tomorrow in any case, we can meet Snyder for lunch near Langley.”

“There’ll be spooks everywhere,”
said Frank.

“Precisely,” replied Howe.  “He’ll
just be going out to lunch like every other spook.  There’s nothing suspicious
about that.”

Stanley Howe gestured for the men
to have a seat on the back patio where they could enjoy a refreshingly cool
evening and a glass of Scotch.  As they clinked glasses, John saw something
from the corner of his eye that caught his attention.  It was someone
approaching from the direction of the water.  John instinctively hit the deck
as he saw the man draw a weapon.  The man got one shot off before John took him
down with his shot.  He first turned to Frank, who was fine, then Howe, who was
clutching his arm and grimacing.

“You’re hit,” said John.

“Not that bad,” said Howe, wincing
with some pain, but holding himself on his feet.

The shot had hit his bicep, and
John took a quick look at Howe.  As long as it missed any artery he would be
okay.  “Go see who it was,” said Howe.

John ran down to the assailant,
rolled up the sleeve of the dead man’s sweatshirt, and saw the double dagger
tattoo.  He took the dead man’s gun, dragged the body to the water, and threw
it in.  It would turn up somewhere and nobody would be able to track the
identity.

John then returned to Howe. 
“You’ll have to get treated and then drop out of sight for a while.”

The neighbor’s door opened and an
older man with gray hair stepped out.  “We didn’t need this,” whispered John.

“Yes we did,” said Howe.  “That’s
doctor Hannigan, and he’s just what we need.”

The doctor walked over, and Howe
explained that this was something they needed to keep quiet.  Hannigan nodded,
his respect for Howe all the reason he needed to heed the request.  He examined
Howe carefully.  “I can clean you up in my house and get you on some
antibiotics easily enough.  Then I’ll take you to my place in Ocean City where
you can drop out of sight for a week or two.”

As they arranged the logistics,
Millie surprised them all by saying, “I guess I’m coming with you to Langley
tomorrow.”  They had expected Millie to accompany Howe to Ocean City, leaving
their meeting with Snyder in jeopardy.

“You’re okay leaving Stanley like
this?” asked a surprised Frank.

“If Gary Hannigan says he’s okay,
I’m not worried,” said Millie.  “I know what needs to be done Mr. Goworski, and
right now it’s getting your information into the right hands.  Now let’s pack
up and stay with my sister tonight.  I don’t think it’s safe here.”

“Good morning Mr. Burrows.  I’m
Colonel Olsen March, and I’m the commanding officer here at Laughlin.  They
said you needed to see me immediately, but looking at you, I’d say you might
benefit from some time in our infirmary before we do anything else.”

“I had to drink contaminated water
to stay alive through the desert, Colonel, so I appreciate the offer.  But
first I have to tell you something very important.”

“What is it?”

“About 25 miles east of here,
there’s a large air base staffed by Chinese personnel.  Large cargo aircraft
are landing and taking off night and day, unloading heavy military equipment
and even fighter jets.  The General in charge is named Kim, but for whatever
reason, he takes his orders from an American civilian named Ellis.”

“We know about the complex down
there.  We’ve seen it on the satellite images.  But we haven’t we seen much
activity on radar, or during our patrol flights.”

“The flights come in low from the
southwest.  I guess that’s far enough to stay off your radar.  They take off in
the same direction.  I’m guessing that’s also to avoid detection.”

“That’s concerning, Mr. Burrows. 
I’ll be sure to send up a sortie to check it out.  We can’t be too careful
about what’s on our borders, after all.  I thank you for your efforts to report
this.  Now, can I take you to our infirmary?”

“I appreciate the offer, Colonel,
but I need to be sure you’re going to take action here.  The reason I went into
Mexico was to pursue armed trucks that were making incursions on US soil. 
They’d almost killed a good friend of mine, and to be honest, I have no idea if
he’s alive or not.”

“You’re talking about Jason
Gilbert?  It was in the news.  I’m sorry to have to tell you, but he didn’t
make it.  Your disappearance has been in the news too.”

Burrows recoiled at the word of
Gilbert’s death.  He curled over, arms over his legs, starting to feel sick. 
He could not tell if it was from hearing the news, his hunger and exhaustion,
or from the water he had drank.

“I followed some raiders back
across the border, to see where they were based.  I thought it was going to be
a small drug smuggling operation, and that I would go to the press and
embarrass the Border Patrol over their stupid policies.  But what I found was a
force big enough to pull off D-day.  Now I’m going to embarrass the military. 
That is unless you go there and ‘discover’ it before I do.  Am I making myself
clear, Colonel March?”

“Very clear, Mr. Burrows.  And I
give you my personal guarantee, we will have the situation resolved before
you’re even released from the infirmary.”

“Thank you, Colonel.  I’m ready to
get checked out now.  By the way, where is everyone?  The base is dead.  There
are no flights taking off, and there couldn’t be more than a dozen troops from
what I’ve seen.”

“They’re mostly in Taiwan and the
Middle East.  There’s just nothing left stateside after the President deployed
everything we had.”

“Then you’re seriously outnumbered,
Colonel.  They could overwhelm you with what they have there in San Gustavo.”

“I respect that, Mr. Burrows.  Once
I can confirm the activities at the base, it should not be a problem to recall
sufficient forces to protect our borders.”

Colonel March accompanied Burrows
to the infirmary, where the doctor on duty gave him an intravenous to hydrate
him, along with a high dose of antibiotics to stop any infection in its
tracks.  March whispered something to the doctor, and Burrows was not paying
close attention when the doctor injected another substance into the IV bag.  Burrows
began to feel very groggy and fell into a deep sleep.

Back in his office, March was on
the phone before he even sat down.  “Derek, we got him.  He knew it was you in
charge.  He didn’t think it was just the Chinese.”

“Yeah, he could have blown it out
of the water.”

“He’s sedated now.”

“It shouldn’t be any problem
keeping him under for that long.”

“Oh really?  Yeah, I can do that.”

Hanna Morgensen brought CIA
Director Bill Connolly along on her morning visit to Torres.  “I thought I
would have Bill brief you in person on some unfortunate developments.”

“Sir, we targeted a list of
engineers working on the Chinese missile defense system.  We carried out a hit
in Hong Kong on one of the people on the list, but it turned out to be a high
ranking Chinese politician by the same name.  Go figure, Chinese names being so
similar and all.”  Connolly finished with a morbid chuckle.

“You assassinated a Chinese
politician?” asked Torres, wide eyed and aghast.

“That’s not all,” said Morgensen. 
“The idiot he sent to do the job got caught.  He wasn’t counting on the kind of
security that attends politicians.  As soon as they find out who he is, there’s
going to be hell to pay with the Chinese government.”

“There should be plausible deniability”,
said Connolly.  “We won’t back our operatives when they screw up this badly.”

“Why are your operatives even doing
this?” asked Torres, nearly screaming, veins bulging in his forehead.

“Since you banned us from dealing
with the professionals at Morningstar, we’ve had to take on their roles
ourselves,” said Connolly.  “These are the results.”

Morgensen waited a moment for that
news item to be fully digested before continuing.  “That’s not all.  They’ve
mistakenly killed Chinese agents in Pakistan.”

Torres was numb by now, and simply
shook his head. 

“It was a drone strike, and our
intelligence indicated they were militants opposed to US activities in
Afghanistan,” said Connolly.  “The intelligence was mistaken, and they were
Pakistani regulars with Chinese attachés.”

“And who authorized you to carry
out any of these attacks?” asked Torres. 

“It was my understanding from
Secretary Morgensen that
you
did,” said Connolly.

“Hanna, would you please leave us?”
asked Torres.  She stood up and left without a word.

“Mr. Connolly, can you show me a
memo with my signature on it which specifically authorizes any of this?”

“No Sir, it was all verbal.”

“Then I could have you charged with
murder, or treason.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sir.  I was
acting in the national interest, and you know it.”

“And who in your opinion defines
the national interest, Mr. Connolly?  The CIA Director or the President?”

“Presidents come and go,” said
Connolly.  “If it was the President, we’d have chaos.  The bureaucracy, working
together with the corporate entities, has always defined our national
interest.  With all due respect Sir, your skill set is suited only to sell the
decisions to the public.”

“I also have to answer to foreign
governments when you murder their citizens.  I demand you clear every decision
with me first.”

“That’s simply not practical.  We
would never be able to act quickly enough, and your political cronies would
leak information all over the place.  If this is not okay, I can resign.  But
then you’d have two high profile resignations at once, and the rumors would
start flying.”

“I will confer with my Attorney
General, and we’ll decide together whether you will be charged, Mr. Connolly. 
If you are, you will resign in disgrace.”

Bill Connolly shrugged as if he
could not care one way or the other what Torres had to say.  He stood up and
left without a word.

Several minutes passed, during
which Torres became aware of a conversation taking place outside his office. 
It did not last long.  Morgensen walked back into the Oval Office and went
right on offense.  “If you hadn’t been such an obstructionist at the beginning
and approved the covert operation, they would have kept you in the loop at
least as a formality.  Instead they had to keep it from you, and now you’re going
to lose face when you have to back down on your threats to Bill Connolly.”

“Suppose I don’t back down, Hanna. 
Suppose I go on the air and tell them the truth about who runs the government. 
Suppose people knew they were electing a figurehead who executes the will of
the elite with no regard for the people?”

“If you forced us to drop the
pretense, we would reluctantly do so, Mr. President.  Do you really want a
United States with a formal oligarchy, out in the open?  Because that’s where
this is heading if you follow through.”

Torres stewed for a few moments,
looking at the Cobra with such hatred that even
she
appeared to show
some fear.  “That’s not what I want, Hanna,” he finally said.  “But I do want
to be kept in the loop for anything we do as a government, where I will be held
to account by those who believe the pretense.”

“That can be arranged,” said the
Cobra, actually showing relief that she had won that standoff.  She stood and
left in a bit more of a hurry than was customary for her.