Reprisal!- The Eagle's Challenge

by Cliff Roberts

  The story next to the one about the senator was about the FBI having opened an investigation into the possible connection between Steven Howard and the French diplomats who were being charged with computer espionage. It strongly inferred that Steven Howard was the focus of an international investigation regarding insider trading and tax evasion in seven countries. The story quoted two unnamed sources, one at the FBI and one from the White House, for the information.

  The war had started just as they thought it would. Steven did as promised for Senator Bains and hired the best legal minds in the country to handle her case with the IRS and to represent her in front of Congress.

  Steven seriously doubted that they had anything to worry about because they hadn’t done anything wrong; but he also knew that in Washington it was the appearance of wrongdoing that was more important than any actual wrongdoing. The game was one of personal destruction, where the winning strategy was to drag your opponent through the mud, causing as much of it to stick to them as possible and not let anything as trivial as the truth stand in your way!

  CHAPTER TWO

  After spending two months recovering from the wounds he’d suffered in Israel, Tom had been ordered to go to Costa Rica to meet up with Ron Houch to perform what the boss had said would be a short mission. After reading the briefing papers, Tom understood why it would be brief. He and Ron were to find a way to eliminate a drug lord with suspected ties to Al-Qaeda, as quickly as possible and then get the hell out of town.

  As Tom strode up the airport gangway at Juan Santa Maria International Airport, thirty-five miles outside of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, he was greeted by a couple of surprises. The first surprise was mildly uncomfortable. Immediately upon exiting the plane, Tom was hit with a blast of extremely humid, hot tropical air, which instantly drew a sweat, causing him to feel like he had just walked into a steam bath.

  His second surprise, the more shocking of the two, occurred at the end of the gangway as he entered the terminal. Ron Houch was waiting for him. At least he thought it was Ron. Almost everything about the man was different, except his eyes. It was the eyes that gave him away. They were as deep blue and penetrating as ever. But the man in possession of those eyes was nothing like the man Tom had known before. That man looked like a reject from the 1960s flower power generation, including scruffy beard, ragged shorts and worn out sandals. This man was clean shaven. His hair was cut short, in what Tom would have called military style—short on the sides and flat on top, probably due to the wounds he suffered in Israel—and it was dyed blond, a bright, white blond. Tom found himself thinking it looked good on him. Ron was also dressed in decent adult apparel. He was still in shorts, tan color, a khaki shirt, and heavy duty brown combat boots. If Tom had to describe him in a word, it would have been respectable. Maybe it wasn’t Ron, after all.

  “Hi there, you must be Tom Langston. I’m Ron Rodriguez, and I’ll be your Eco Tour Guide for the next week! How was your trip?” Ron stuck out his hand and Tom took it. They then stood there shaking hands for a few seconds, leaving Tom dumbfounded by Ron and his ruse.

  “What are you talking about?” Tom asked quietly with a puzzled look on his face.

  “A bit of jet lag, huh? Well, don’t worry about it. Let’s get you through customs and then we’ll head out to the park. We’ll start taking pictures tomorrow!” Ron kept right on talking loudly as if Tom knew what the hell was going on.

  Together they started walking towards the customs area with Ron talking non-stop about butterflies, birds and who knew what else. Finally, Ron leaned in close and whispered, “I’ll do the talking when we get to customs, just like in Tel Aviv.” Tom rolled his eyes, remembering what a circus that was. “If they ask, you’re here for an Eco Tour. I just stuck a new passport into your pocket. You’re Tom Langston from New Jersey. You’re in the country for five days on vacation. Got it? Good! If they ask anything else, just make it up as you go, but try to be believable, okay?”

  Then Ron loudly announced that customs was right over here and pulled Tom towards the lines filled with other tourists. After fifteen minutes or so, Tom reached the front of the line, only to have Ron swoop in and start a loud conversation with the customs officer. Tom stood staring at Ron, who was now definitely the same guy he had seen in action in Tel Aviv. Ron stood toe-to-toe with the customs official, and the two of them began shouting in Spanish at each other.

  The verbal battle raged for several minutes as they waved their arms about, one shouting about laws and rules, the other shouting about damaging his business and the people he knew in high places.

  Tom, not having the heart to stop Ron, didn’t let him know when the official two booths over

  signaled he was available. Tom slipped over to him, got his passport stamped and started walking away before he remembered Ron and the customs official were still going at it. They were so involved, neither Ron nor the customs officer had noticed Tom had moved on. Finally, to get their attention over the ruckus, Tom had to loudly call out Ron’s name.

  Everyone in the customs area turned to look at Tom and then at Ron. Finally, during a momentary lull in the verbal combat, Ron looked towards Tom. Seeing he was beyond the customs station, Ron turned back to the customs officer, who was looking at Tom with a puzzled look upon his face. Tom held up his passport for both of them to see, showing the fresh new entry stamp, and grinned. Both Ron and the officer turned to look at each other, then the customs officer gave Ron a big wide grin and Ron smiled back, shrugged his shoulders, and walked off to follow Tom. Once Ron and Tom were in the rented van, Tom began asking questions.

  “What is all this Eco Tour stuff?” Tom asked bluntly.

  “Hey, it’s good to see you, too! We needed a reason to be here. I mean, Costa Rica is a friendly place for the most part, but there are lots and lots of unfriendly people here. We’ve got Russians, Chinese, Koreans, Europeans, South Americans, druggies and spies! We need to blend in. Kidnapping is a way of life down here. The banditos will slit your throat for a buck, so it’s best to advertise you’re here for an Eco Tour, which is the country’s number one attraction and money maker. As long as we stay away from where the locals hang out, we shouldn’t have any problems, but keep your guard up,” Ron explained.

  “Okay, I wasn’t given any of that background. Where are we headed anyway?” Tom asked as Ron made his third right turn in the three minutes since they had left the airport.

  “I’m doubling back, making sure no one has followed us, and once I’m sure, we’ll be headed west to a small resort town on the coast—a place called Boca Barranca. Garza has a villa on the beach there. The guy really knows how to live. His property has a great view of Costa Rica Bay, lots of tourists in the area, as well as picture post card views of San Lucas Island and the Nicoya Peninsula. He bought it for a song about fifteen years ago from some American drug lord wanna-be. It was one of those offers that he couldn’t refuse.” Ron chuckled at his movie reference before continuing. “Anyway, I think it will be our best chance to catch him with some lax security. You read his file, right?”

  “Yeah, I read the file, but the villa wasn’t explained quite as enticingly as you did. What’s wrong with his place in San Jose?” Tom asked as they turned left for a second time.

  “His place in town is a fortress! Ten-foot high walls surround it, with embedded glass along the top. The closest house is over two hundred yards in any direction, and they’re all fortresses, too. The local police guard both ends of the road, and he has over thirty men inside the compound. The estate happens to be twenty acres in size with five houses, stables and a garage,” Ron explained.

  “Yeah, all of that is in the report. You don’t think we could use one of the other estates to set up a shot?” Tom inquired, even though he now had serious doubts of his own after hearing Ron explain the situation.

  “If there was an unoccupied estate close by, but there isn’t. Most of the places around his are owned by government officials; plus, he has
his own security as well as the police. The only redeeming quality of the government here is the fact they don’t have a military, just police. That’s why it is such a busy place. Little in the way of law enforcement. Plus, I just think we’ll have an easier time in a resort town.”

  “I’ve always liked the beach, but how do we know he’ll go there?” Tom asked.

  “He goes every weekend unless he’s out of the country. Sometimes he stays for a week or two, and I have a feeling that he’ll stay a while this time because his new mistress just arrived this morning. We’ll just have to wait around until he shows. In the back, I’ve got a few cameras we can place around to monitor via wireless connection, and we’ll rent some place within a mile to keep a good signal.”

  “So why am I here?” Tom asked sarcastically.

  “I needed a spotter, so I asked for you. The rest of the team, if they get here before we get him and his two henchmen—that would be Primo Ramos and Anastas Soto—will be our helpers with the surveillance part of the job,” Ron replied.

  “Why me?” Tom wondered.

  “Because I liked the way you persevered when we got stuck in the West Bank. Plus, you’re a good strategist. You’ll see things that maybe I won’t.”

  “Well, aren’t I a lucky guy!” Tom quipped.

  “Hey, stick with me, and you’ll be as good as me someday!” Ron quipped back with a big grin plastered across his face.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The story broke in the London Times on the same day as the story of Jason Combs’ death. The headline read: “Evidence Against Senator Bains Forged by Political Rivals!” The story went on to explain that Senator Rougeford, a Democrat from Illinios, was trying to hold hearings on possible ethics violations and corruption charges leveled against Senator Bains, billionaire businessman Steven Howard, and a retired four-star Marine Corps Commandant, who’s last posting was as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, with documents that were forged by a high-ranking Starks administration official, according to a source that leaked the information from the NSA.

  Then it went on to explain that an FBI investigation had begun into the possible ethics and corruption violations committed by Senator Rougeford and the as of yet unnamed administration official. It referred to the fact that this wasn’t the first story about possible corruption in the Starks administration. It quoted an earlier story about how the FBI was looking into another high-ranking administration official for falsifying documents in regard to Senator Bains. It even brought up the fact this wasn’t the first allegation against Steven Howard; and it restated the current French hacking scandal that claimed Howard was involved, but as it turned out, that story was a lie. The two reporters responsible for the original story made a stunning confession that it was made up. The DOJ was rumored to be looking into that situation, while Howard had amended his lawsuit for slander against the papers to include a second charge for this new article.

  The stateside papers picked up the story the following day, putting it on page two below the fold. The story picked up a definite slant which, if you read the story quickly, might lead the reader to believe that Rougeford had been cleared of any wrongdoing already, and that the story in Europe was just that—a story! But the story didn’t die as the newspapers had hoped.

  The following day, the stateside papers all had egg on their faces when the documents Rougeford was planning on using to build his case were printed on the front page of no less than seven major international publications, as well as being the lead story on Sky News, BBC World Watch News, CNN Europe and French television. It was also the top news story on Fox News and all of the conservative talk radio shows in the U.S.

  The next day, talk radio began a very organized and orchestrated campaign of encouragement for its listening audience to contact their local members of Congress and the Senate, demanding an investigation into this scandal.

  Two days before the hearings into the ethics of Senator Bains, Retired General Charles Clarett and Steven Howard, the hearings were suddenly postponed, which received only minor mention on the editorial page. The story was still being portrayed as a major scandal for Senator Bains, but the hearings were being postponed due to budget meetings dealing with the pending budgetary shortfall, which someone had deemed more critical. What the article didn’t mention was that the shit hit the fan big time at the White House because this growing scandal could possibly reach Starks, and that just couldn’t be allowed to happen.

  The print media failed to mention that Fox and CNN were leading with the story, while ABC, CBS and NBC didn’t even mention it. It was also the lead story of all the radio talk shows and with the political bloggers on the internet. The story was definitely gaining traction.

  The second story that ran in the European papers was overlooked even by the brain trust at Kilauea Corp. The headline read: “U.S. Debt Reaches Fourteen Trillion,” with a byline of “U.S. Debt Growing By One Hundred Million Per Day.”

  The story explained America was borrowing faster than its economy could produce repayment capital. The proof was the fact that the dollar had lost fifty percent of its value and was struggling not to drop further. It also pointed out that the majority of the commentators, pundits and political hacks were blaming the loss of value on the expansion of entitlement programs, and those programs must be cut back or eliminated. The part the American public wasn’t hearing about was the expanding government workforce and government intrusion into the average American’s life. Every day, someone in Congress introduces a bill attempting to regulate how we eat, how we sleep, receive medical care, where we live, what we say and what our children learn. In less than a hundred years, without a revolution, the country had gone from a vibrant individual-based economy to one that was racing towards failed socialism.

  It also pointed out the cost of energy (i.e., oil and natural gas) that had closed the day before at an unprecedented high of one hundred and fifty-five dollars a barrel was forcing America and the other western nations to go deeply into debt to the Middle Eastern oil producing nations at extreme risk to their own sovereignty. The newly proposed world currency, based on the spot price of oil, was clearly a reaction to the world’s fundamental power shifting to a handful of energy producing nations. China had been particularly hurt by the run on oil prices, despite having made a deal with Russia for over fifty million barrels a day from Siberia through the Chi-Russia pipeline. Russia simply could not produce enough oil at this point to be a foil against the takeover plans by the energy nations of the Middle East.

  When the Saudi Minister of Resources, Prince Abdul bin Zayed Al-Fahd, was asked what prompted the huge spike in the oil prices and what were the plans of OPEC, if any, to help alleviate the world crisis, he shrugged his shoulders and merely stated it was the market’s place to regulate pricing, not OPEC’s or his country’s. When the reporter asked a follow-up question regarding OPEC’s past production limits and attempts to regulate the pricing, the reporter was thrown out of the press conference by the prince’s bodyguards.

  *****

  The second set of false allegations in the Washington Courier and The New York Press had caused Steven to take personal offense. He wasn’t usually the type of person who took things personally when the papers attacked his business practices, but with these two stories, they weren’t attacking his business. They were attacking his personal integrity. For Steven, this was as personal as it could get, and the only thing that would have caused him more distress would have been an attack on his wife and children.

  He immediately contacted Bill Richland and had him begin planting the retraction stories with every newspaper he could think of, except the Washington Courier and The New York Press. In those two papers, he had him plant a different article expanding on the first one and condemning the other papers for buying some cock and bull story from a Howard sycophant. Steven would then have Bill get every last bit of information pertaining to Steven’s supposed involvement with the French hackers from the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and
NSA, in the hopes of finding the smoking gun of the fabrication. Within two days, Bill had discovered an internal memo at the NSA, clearly explaining that the whole story had been a complete fabrication by Bascome. It came complete with the memo to his staff and the actual document from his computer with date and time stamps attached. Other evidence included an internal FBI memo saying it was a complete fabrication and wondering where the papers got their information. In addition, Bill had discovered the true smoking gun memo from the editors-in-chief at both papers to the reporters who wrote the stories, ordering them to write the bogus story at the insistence of an unnamed administration official.

  To seal the newspapers’ fate, Steven had Bill fabricate another memo about how the two editors conspired together to do harm to Steven and his company by planting bogus stories at every opportunity. Steven would be sure to have Bill include a sentence or two alluding to a White House source, who would supply inside information as needed to make the stories appear real and solid. The stories vindicating Steven would be planted on Drudge, Brietbart, The Blaze, The Wall Street Journal, AP and Reuters, as well as in the papers themselves. Of course, he’d have Bill leave off the author’s byline, although he’d have him plant the whole story and do research, as well, on the office computer of the same reporter who wrote the original story, claiming Steven’s involvement.

  Once the stories ran, Steven would then have his attorneys pounce on the papers. He’d sue them for defamation of character and financial damages to his business. He’d make sure it made all the other papers, except the Washington Courier and The New York Press, by seeking damages in excess of half a billion dollars.

  Steven wasn’t normally this harsh or underhanded, but he’d had enough. He knew it was the Starks administration that was really behind it all, and it was time to start returning the favor. The list of offenses against the American people was growing daily, and they included bribes from foreign sources, the murder for hire of David Ashrawl, along with numerous outright lies fabricated by Bascome and Combs. The more Steven and his team delved into Starks and his staff, the worse it became. Nixon had been impeached and drummed from office for doing far less, and it was time that someone started to force Starks and his regime to be accountable.