The Land of the Free

by TJ Tucker

  Now, Burrows took the exit off route 90 and proceeded past Seminole Canyon State Park. He left the road and came to a promontory above the Rio Grande where he could view a broad expanse of river. The spot was among his favorites to observe the river and enjoy the serenity when nothing was happening. Burrows was 35, thin but not athletic, and a little on the short side. He had close cropped brown hair and a neatly trimmed mustache, as well as a habit of talking to himself, developed over thousands of lonely hours on duty. After waiting several hours, he saw it. A convoy of three pickups with machine guns in their beds crossing the river back into Mexico. Those bastards! They’re crossing the border back and forth like it’s their back yard.

  A radical idea came upon Burrows. He knew that reporting the crossing would accomplish nothing, and the next Agent who crossed their path would meet Gilbert’s fate, or worse. He would follow them and find out where they were based. He had his high-end camera, so he would use it. They wouldn’t be able to ignore the pictures so easily.

  There were not many convenient spots in the region for crossing the Rio Grande. The banks were steep upstream of the Amistad Reservoir, often like a canyon. He waited until he was sure they could not observe him and descended the valley side to the river, crossing it easily with his Tahoe. The rutted trail up the other side of the canyon was barely identifiable as anything but rough riverbank. But in his years of patrolling, Burrows had become expert at off-road driving, and had little trouble making the climb. He was now in Mexico, a blatant violation of his instructions. But he didn’t care. This had gone too far, and he was going to force them to take action.

  As he cleared the crest of the canyon, Burrows saw the dust tail of the receding trucks in the distance. In front of his vehicle, he could see their tire tracks very clearly. They were using heavy duty off-road tires that left deep impressions in the dirt. It would be no problem tracking them. But this was not a flat desert floor. He had to move slowly, almost at a crawl. His own tires compromised between road comfort and some off-road prowess, but today that prowess was too little. He occasionally crossed a primitive road, but the tracks he was following did not use roads, so he stayed on course. His progress was slow, and he had to make a strategic decision. The day was late, and he could not risk traveling at night, lest he fall into a deep gully and never get out. On any other day, common sense would have prevailed and he would have turned around to go home. But this wasn’t any other day. Whether it was his visit to Gilbert or other factors, today he was determined to see things through.

  As the sun sank low in the sky, Burrows was sure he saw large airplanes coming in from the southwest, landing somewhere not too far to the south of his location. There’s no air base around here, so far as I know. He watched the activity into twilight and there was no mistake about it. Not only were they coming in from the southwest, they were also taking off into the southwest. Now that’s really weird. No airport he had ever seen would let flights take off back in the same direction they came from. The direction was always dictated by the wind, so planes could both take off and land facing the wind for greater air speed.

  Burrows found a gully that was deep enough to hide his vehicle, but not so steep that getting in and out would be a problem. He parked for the night, and climbed onto the roof of the Tahoe. It was still summer and the evening was hot, but the drier air here deep in the desert made it relatively comfortable. He sat on the Tahoe’s roof for an additional hour, watching the endless stream of airplanes coming and going. He took out his binoculars to get a closer look. They were large cargo planes, but he could not identify the models, and there were no markings that he could make out. Finally well after dark, Burrows flopped down the back seats of his Tahoe and made a makeshift cot to sleep on. He would pursue this again tomorrow.

  Chapter 4: President Jackson Torres

  President Jackson Torres sat at his desk sipping his third cup of coffee, irrationally hoping that more coffee would calm his nerves, and preparing for his upcoming meeting with a special envoy from the Chinese government. The meeting was at the specific request of the Chinese Premier. The envoy was known even in Washington as a rising star in Chinese politics, and a power broker in international circles.

  The door opened without as much as a knock. Through it walked Hanna Morgensen, the Secretary of State. She was barely over 5 feet tall, but heavyset. Her eyebrows naturally dipped in the middle of her forehead to shape a permanent frown. For the benefit of anybody who thought her appearance accidental and not indicative of her demeanor, there was a second warning. She always wore a brooch in the shape of a coiled cobra, with garnets in its eyes. Torres assumed she must have a drawer full of identical brooches, because she never failed to show up wearing one.

  Torres instinctively tensed as the Cobra entered. He knew that before she left, she would intimidate him into agreeing to something inimical to his values. She was not his choice for Secretary of State. Most of his cabinet picks were names he chose, which were then vetted by his anonymous donors. But they had insisted specifically on the Cobra for State.

  Torres counted among his ancestors the Mayflower Americans and the governing class of Puerto Ricans. He even had a convenient smidgeon of Native American blood. His complexion was light, his features Caucasian, yet in the race conscious cauldron that was America, he was considered multiracial. He was a tall man with obvious muscle tone and a square jaw. His credentials were perfect on a superficial level to qualify him as President of the United States. But his strong look could not completely cover the deep insecurity he carried in his role. He was afraid of the Cobra, and he was even more afraid that she saw it.

  “Good morning Hanna,” opened Torres with an apprehension he hoped to hide, trying his best to appear confident. “It’s always a pleasure to see you first thing,” he added with only the faintest hint of irony. The Cobra made no effort to acknowledge the greeting or break her permanent frown. She merely tilted her head downwards slightly, so the glasses on the end of her nose gave way to her unobstructed glare.

  With Torres still cringing, Morgensen sat down opposite him at his desk and opened the folder she was carrying. “You need to get two points across to the Chinese,” she opened. “First, if they want continued access to our markets, they have to recognize the difficulty this causes us with our trade deficits. The capital flow from us to them has to be re-circulated. Accordingly, we expect their purchases of Treasury securities to continue at their present percentage of trade. Second, we expect them to revalue the Yuan with respect to the Dollar.”

  “But that’s impossible,” objected Torres, leaning back in his chair to try to put himself at ease. “The very act of buying our debt increases the value of the Dollar with respect to the Yuan.”

  Morgensen was unmoved. “Then they’ll have to get creative in other ways. They can sell Euros, for example. If they don’t like that, they can invent their own solution. But they will revalue the Yuan. Our position is final.” She looked at him over her reading glasses as if to further drive home the point.

  Torres wondered whether her definition of “our position” held any regard for what he thought. He fidgeted in his chair and gripped his pen tightly enough to flex it visibly. “Is there anything else?”

  “You will be firm with them. Use threats if you must. They have to see that you’re serious.”

  Torres said nothing, but inside his head he was shouting: I could send you to Beijing. That should scare them quickly enough.

  The Cobra rose and started towards the door while Torres bid her goodbye with “Thank you, Hannula.”

  She quickly turned and gave him a glare that could cut through inch thick steel. She hated her formal name, and was sure that Torres knew that. She turned her back and walked out the door without any further comment.

  Torres was as entrenched in the establishment culture of America as most holders of that office have been. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, where his father was a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia Hist
ory Department, Torres was schooled in the private schools of New England. He then attended Yale, where he developed good working relationships with many future power brokers. The establishment interests saw in him a perfect blend of their values combined with a background that they hoped could bring together different cultural groups to build consensus on issues of importance.

  Next in to see Torres was National Security Advisor Mansour Kurdistani. “Kurdi,” as he was known, had been brought in for his knowledge of the peoples of Southwest Asia, while having also proven his allegiance the progressive Western political and economic orders. Kurdi was always a welcome reprieve after Morgensen. He was slightly shorter than average with dark straight hair and a full mustache. He walked in a gentle rocking manner that had a way of putting people at ease. He remained on his feet as he began. “Mr. President, I’ll leave the routine reports with you should you want to review them, but today I want to highlight this one in particular.”

  Kurdi sat deferentially in the chair across from Torres, the same chair Morgensen had aggressively made her own. He handed Torres a memo while holding his own copy. “I’ll summarize it. Chinese naval maneuvers around southern Japanese islands are intensifying, and the details we have picked up from their communications seem to indicate a high level of interest in Japan. It’s important to qualify those statements with the limitations of our listening capabilities. Their important communications are scrambled, and we’re nowhere near being able to break those codes. What we can read amounts to low level chatter, and we monitor trends in that chatter. In all likelihood, they know that we listen, so I don’t put it past them to send us backdoor messages.”

  “They’re threatening to invade Japan?” asked Torres as he folded his hands behind his head and leaned back, deliberately provoking Kurdi with an overstatement of what he had heard.

  “Sir, in my opinion, they are merely trying to remind you that they can project their power if forced to do so. It may be that they decided now was the perfect time to do so, ahead of your meeting with their envoy. An actual invasion is not a realistic danger, again in my opinion.”

  “Have they made any threats against Taiwan?” asked Torres.

  “No Sir, at least not by way of naval maneuvers or low level chatter that we can monitor.”

  “That’s strange by its absence,” noted Torres. “Of course, if they were considering anything there, their communications would be encrypted. It wouldn’t be part of any posturing on their part, right?”

  “Yes Sir, that’s likely. Would you like me to raise it at our staff meetings, to get all the opinions on the table?”

  “Please do. Thanks for your briefing Kurdi, and get back to me with your consensus as soon as you meet.”

  Kurdi was about to take that as his cue to leave, but hesitated as he began to move to the door. “What else is there, Kurdi?” asked Torres.

  “Sir, we’ve conducted an assessment of an earlier issue that had come up. Do you remember when we found computer viruses in the control systems for our drone fleet?”

  “I remember. What was your conclusion?”

  “First, I have to say that there was a lot of pressure on us to find that Iran was responsible. Since the Persian Gulf is a major arena where the drones are used, it seemed plausible at first.”

  “So you don’t think it’s Iran?” asked Torres.

  Kurdi looked defensive, with his head low. “Iran is utterly lacking in the programming sophistication that we found in the viruses. China and Israel are the only countries that have that level of military computing horsepower. Aside from us, of course.”

  “What was so sophisticated about it?”

  “Our drones have one area of vulnerability. They are piloted remotely. So in theory, their control mechanisms could be overtaken by an enemy who overrides our signal. Our encryption should make that impossible, but not if certain codes are collected and transmitted from inside our system. That’s what these viruses were designed to do.”

  “So our drones are compromised?” asked Torres.

  “Possibly, and not only our drones. All civilian aircraft have had the same control systems in place, since the mid 1990s, allowing the ground to take over the plane, and lock out the pilots. It’s a way of foiling hijackers, but now we’re talking about a hostile party being able to take over the plane.”

  “Thanks Kurdi. Please send a memo to all senior military planners, and include a note that I approve of your conclusion.” Kurdi nodded and left Torres’ office.

  Torres’ political rise was almost inevitable, as he had a natural skill at engaging people’s attention, and an insider’s pedigree. His father was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was widely noted for his expertise on the history of world trade, from colonial to modern times. His rise seemed effortless, and money came to his campaigns without his having to ask or negotiate. Most of it came from effectively anonymous sources where the true source of the money was never known to him. The suburban Maryland district he represented in Congress took to his progressive ideas with overwhelming enthusiasm. Within four years and with the death of an older Maryland Senator, Torres easily claimed that seat at the age of 38. By that time, political insiders were openly discussing how long it would be before his appearance on a national ticket. But with approval from insiders came suspicions from the people that he was indifferent to their interests. Despite the mistrust of the common people, Torres nonetheless rode a wave of progressive enthusiasm to an easy electoral victory, aided in no small part by the nation’s aversion to the heavy handed governance of the previous administration. Torres was beloved in progressive circles, not least because he was elected without needing to placate the populist sentiments that were so alien to progressives.

  Torres’ final visitor was his Chief of Staff Gerry Levine. Levine was respectful but in a way that always left the impression of a façade. “Is everything set for the special envoy?” asked Torres.

  “Yes Sir, though I also have to ask whether you’ve worked everything out with Ms. Morgensen. She was pretty firm about being first in this morning.”

  Torres extended his arms and looked up in a mock gesture of surrender. “Gerry, the Cobra is killing me. Couldn’t you tell her I’m at some monastery in Antarctica or something?”

  “Sir, if I did that, it’s me who would find himself in Antarctica, or at least pieces of me would be,” replied Levine with an awkward smile.

  Torres gave Levine a quick glance as if to remind him that only one of them was going to make jokes during these discussions, and Levine quickly became serious again. “Keep on Kurdi for me. I need to know what their take is on the Chinese naval maneuvers.”

  Chapter 5: Golfing with Stahl

  When Jackson Torres was under stress, it was well known that he favored golf as an escape from his problems. What was not well known was that his favored golf partner and mentor Carson Stahl was perhaps the biggest single influence in his life. Stahl was a pragmatist who had left wing tendencies in his younger days but had evolved over time into a pragmatic power broker. He had a knack at posing the right question to an opinion poll and getting an answer that could be exploited in an election. But more importantly, Stahl knew the people who represented the big money, the people you had to make the deals with if you wanted to be elected to higher office.

  When the two played golf, they would often sit and talk in the cart for long periods of time, even when they had arrived at the golf ball. The Secret Service gave them their space, but they instinctively did most of their talking in the cart.

  “I’m burning out, Carson,” said Torres. “Power is an illusion in my office. You showed me how to get elected, how to raise the money needed from the owners and gain acceptance with their lackeys in the media. But now I’m their employee, and my job is to protect their interests from the people. They even put the Cobra in there to supervise me, to keep me in line.”

  “Jackson, that’s the reality of power,” said Stahl, standing up from the cart a
nd barely increasing his elevation, standing at only 5’5”. Stahl was wise, but he did not look the part enough to be elected to public office himself. “You don’t think they’d let an outsider like yourself upset the apple cart, do you?”

  “But they helped me get elected,” said Torres.

  “Think of it as a rich man who has a vast estate. He hires a manager, whose job it is to keep the peasants happy, and yet keep the estate operating profitably.”

  “That’s different,” protested Torres. “That manager was hired over the peasants. I was elected by the people.”

  “No, it’s not different,” said Stahl. “A resourceful landlord will stage an election, and the peasants will pick his manager, or one of two candidates he nominates for manager. But in no case will he let something as unpredictable as the will of the people affect how the estate is run. That could lead to his ruin.”

  “So I’m just a clerk?” asked Torres.

  “Well, yes,” said Stahl. “You get to fly around in your own, private 747, and host state dinners. You look to the rest of the world like the leader of the free world. Do your part, and your reward for faithful service will be a retirement where you’re paid half a million per speech. I’d say that’s a good way to be a clerk.”

  “Honestly, it doesn’t feel that way when the Cobra’s in my office, browbeating me over what an idiot I am for not understanding ahead of time what the owners want me to do.”

  “There’s intense competition for your job, even with its downsides,” said Stahl. “The owners, as you call them, will invest heavily in order to maintain the illusion of democracy.”

  “Illusion?” asked Torres.

  “When you run for election with a clearly defined platform, and then take office and abandon it completely, in favor of an agenda foisted on you, that’s not democracy,” said Stahl. “When there’s absolutely no connection between what the people vote for and what they get, other than the man in charge, that’s an illusion.”