Enemies Foreign And Domestic

by Matthew Bracken

  Brad could only hope that if there was in informant already sitting at the round table, it was not his fellow boater Barney Wheeler.

  “Pull up a chair Brad. Fellas, this here is Brad… I didn’t catch your last name…”

  “Fallon. Brad Fallon.”

  “Right. Fellas, this here is Brad Fallon. Brad’s got a big old sailboat way up Little Nansemond Creek, except it’s not much of a sailboat, being as it’s got no mast, but then it never would have fit under all those bridges. Brad, you’ve been working in the oil fields up in Alaska, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right, the ANWR. I’m a machinist, but mostly I’ve been doing pipe fitting.”

  “Brad, you having a beer?” asked a tall red haired man. “It ain’t against your religion is it?”

  “Hell no it ain’t! Sure I’ll have a cold one, thanks.” Brad dragged over an extra chair from an uncleared empty table and sat at the opening of the booth. Wheeler gestured to their waitress, and another glass and a fresh pitcher of beer was quickly brought over to the table of the well-known regulars. Brad slipped her a ten dollar bill before anyone could beat him to it, establishing right away that he was not a moocher.

  He got right to the point, ahead of their questions. “I heard in town that you guys know the hunting scene around here, and I’m up for just about any hunting or shooting you got going.”

  A stocky balding man wearing gold wire rimmed glasses introduced himself. “Nice to meet you Brad. Gary Milford.” He leaned across the table to shake Brad’s hand. “You get to do much hunting up in Alaska?”

  “When I could, between contracts. I’ve taken moose and caribou, and I’ve been out for brown bear once.”

  “What are you using on the big game up there?” asked another man.

  “Nothing too special, just standard stuff. 300 Winmag and .338.”

  “Now that’s some hunting!” said Milford. “Damn, that’s real hunting! I’d like to get up to Alaska some day and go after a brownie. I saw you at Mineral Springs last month, I know you can shoot,” he said, filling Brad’s beer glass from the new pitcher.

  Brad slipped the tiny folded-up note from his left back pocket and palmed it. Then he reached with his right hand across the table for his beer just a little too quickly and “accidentally” tipped it over away from Barney, who was next to him on his left. The spill spread across the table, the men jumped back in their seats laughing and cheerfully berating him. While all eyes were on the flowing beer spill Brad quickly slid the note under Barney Wheeler’s hand and whispered “read this.” No one noticed, the diversion worked as intended.

  Wheeler put the note on his lap and peeked at it while their laughing waitress mopped up the spilled beer with a bar towel. She was blond and fairly young and still attractive, so with her tight white blouse and friendly smile and perfume hovering closely over them no one cared about the beer, or thought it was strange that a crack shot like Brad could be so clumsy with his hands, especially when he was still cold sober.

  Barney glanced at the note; in tiny print on both sides it said “IMPORTANT! READ THIS IN THE MEN’S ROOM NOW! NOT A JOKE!” Barney slipped the note into his own pants pocket, and after the table was dried off and their waitress was gone he said, “Excuse me Brad, nature calls.”

  In the men’s room he locked himself in a stall and sat down, carefully unfolding the paper over his knees, and then he slipped on his reading glasses and read it:

  “I was visited at my place yesterday by 6 FBI agents. I was shown one FBI credential. They had a black suburban and a maroon crown vic. The truck was full of assault gear in the back. They are blackmailing me and forcing me to infiltrate the BWR&G club. They think it’s a secret militia front. Please tell me ‘no thanks’ and brush me off, tell me to get lost in a way that the FBI will believe. You may already have an informant in your group. I’m dead serious about this. Tear up and flush this note.”

  Barney Wheeler re-read the note twice, and then he did tear it up into small pieces and flushed it and returned to the booth. The note seemed to fit with the phone call he had gotten from Joe Bardiwell at Freedom Arms yesterday. He’d have to stop by the gun store and talk to Joe about it all. He could hardly believe that the FBI would be investigating the rod and gun club!

  Back at the table the men were all discussing the Stadium Massacre, Jimmy Shifflett, and the new gun law. No one thought that Shifflett had acted alone. They even doubted whether he was the actual shooter. Shifflett had come along on a few gun club coon hunts years back, but even then the boy was too weak and he couldn’t keep up, and he had stopped coming. Then the subject shifted over to the semi-auto rifle ban. Each man in various ways mockingly stated that he had either turned his rifles in already, intended to do so, or had lost them overboard on a fishing trip. This was all said with winking and rolling of the eyes.

  Brad finally asked, “So what’s the hunting look like this fall?”

  Wheeler said “Looks like we won’t be doing any hunting or shooting for a while, not until this mess with the new law gets sorted out. Bow season won’t open for a few more weeks, you still going to be around then?”

  “I hope not. As soon as I can get my boat ready to go down the river I’m putting my mast up, and then I’m heading for the islands.”

  “That sounds like a hell of a good plan about now, the way things are going,” replied Wheeler. “I don’t think any of us will be doing much shooting for a while anyway, not until things settle down. Things are just too damn crazy now. It’s a bad time to be a hunter around here.”

  Brad had another beer with them, finishing the pitcher. Then he excused himself and left, again seeing no visible signs of surveillance teams inside or outside. If Wheeler was an FBI informant, then he was truly 100% screwed. Otherwise he felt optimistic that he had a chance of wriggling out of the federal grip, having demonstrably given the infiltration attempt his best shot to no avail.

  He wondered if their table conversation had been recorded or transmitted, or if one of the men he had shared the table with was a government informant. He wondered if “George” was somewhere analyzing tapes of what had transpired in Lester’s, but he needn’t have worried. George had other plans for his Friday night, and Brad Fallon was not even faintly on his mind.

  7

  The Special Training Unit supervisors had been playing poker and drinking in the basement club room at Wally Malvone’s house for a few hours. This was their normal Friday night routine when they were in Washington. Malvone lived in a moderately sized older home, on the Maryland side of the Potomac River, a few miles south of the DC beltway. What his house lacked in size it made up in location, with water frontage on a small bay that opened onto the Potomac. His long narrow property bordered large wooded estates on both sides, so he had no close neighbors to complain about raucous party noise no matter what the hour. All night blowouts with twenty or more STU members and sometimes their wives or girlfriends were common, because Malvone believed that both hard training and hard partying promoted team camaraderie.

  Bob Bullard turned over the last card in his hand. “Three ladies Joe. Looks like you’re sucking hind tit again.” He raked in a pot of well over four hundred dollars in red white and blue chips.

  “That’s all for me gentlemen, I’m finished,” said a younger agent across from Bullard, pushing back from the table. He was a good looking young man with light brown hair.

  “Count on Hollywood to bail out first,” said Joe Silvari. He was the second in command of the Special Training Unit, and was the leader of its ten man technical support team. “Hollywood” was Tim Jaeger, one of the two team leaders.

  Malvone said, “Joe, if you had a hot piece of ass like Cindy’s warmed up and waiting in the sack for you, you’d be bailing out too.”

  “That’s the truth,” Silvari replied, laughing. “Hell, you would’ve never seen me here tonight at all! I mean, I haven’t had anything like that in oh….well I guess I never did, dammit! Nobody as hot as Cin
dy anyway! Don’t get old Hollywood, what ever you do, don’t get old.”

  The rest of them stretched, scratched, yawned and began to get up. Malvone said, “Look, before you and Michael take off, I’ve got some goodies for you.”

  Tim Jaeger, the one they called Hollywood, and Michael Shanks, who with his beak-like nose and weak chin would never be mistaken for a movie star, were the leaders of the STU’s “Blue” and “Gold” teams. Each was a former military junior officer with specops qualifications. Jaeger had been a Navy SEAL, and Shanks an Army Ranger. Both were hard chargers in their early thirties, and both had seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  “I’ve got a couple of bags for each of you.” Malvone went to a closet under the stairs which led up to the kitchen, and dragged out two heavily-loaded green canvas military duffel bags. Then he went back into the closet and carried out two black vinyl gym bags. The duffel bags were lashed into stiff bundles with green parachute cord cinched around them.

  He said, “The big ones each have ten assault rifles in them. We got them from a couple of militia nut-jobs. None of them were ever logged in, so they’ll all trace back to their original point of sale, and then to the morons we took them from. The dumb jerks always think they’re catching a break, just having their guns confiscated! If they only knew… And don’t ask me how I wound up with them, you don’t need to know.”

  “The gym bags each have ten pistols, same story. Here’s the deal: when we start going after these militia groups, these guns will be our insurance policy. No matter what else we get, we can always pin possession of the guns on them, and the serial numbers will connect them to other militias. That way, we’ll tie them all into one big national militia network, and once that happens, it’ll be a lot easier to start getting really proactive on their asses and taking them out.”

  Jaeger and Shanks were smiling as they easily lifted the heavy bags, hefting their weight and imagining the cool toys inside.

  “Dirty tricks are what I’m talking about boys, dirty tricks. We’re taking the gloves off. We know who the enemy is, and we’re going to hunt them down and destroy them. We’re going to fight fire with fire! We’re not going to sit around waiting for them to hit us first any more.”

  Tim Jaeger flashed his movie star grin and exclaimed “Hoo freakin’ ya! It’s about time!” He gave Shanks a casual high five.

  Malvone said, “We’re not going to Norfolk for now, not just yet, but stand by, I have a feeling things are moving down there. Keep these little bundles safe and handy, and remember: they’ve never been logged in, so be careful. All right guys, that’s all I’ve got for now, see you on Monday. And Tim, give Cindy a wet one for me… okay you assholes, beat it, and take care of those bags.”

  Shanks and Jaeger went out the basement door, which exited at ground level to the backyard on the river side of the house. Each of them toted a duffel bag over a shoulder by its carrying strap, and a gym bag in their free hand. The duffels weighed nearly a hundred pounds each, but both operators handled them like they were full of Styrofoam packing peanuts. Nobody in the Blue or Gold Teams bench-pressed less than 250 pounds, including the team leaders. The STU operators were all seriously muscular guys, able to climb scaling ladders like apes while wearing full tactical gear and body armor, and of course carrying their weapons. It was not a job for pencil neck geeks to say the least.

  When they were gone Joe Silvari said, “Wally, I’ve got to take off too. We’ve been on the road training for I don’t know how many weekends, and I can’t be sneaking in at zero dark thirty smelling like a brewery when I’m finally in town. If I keep this up, what’s left of my marriage is going to go straight down the old shitter.”

  “Well Joe, I guess it’s just a question of your priorities.” Malvone said this only half jokingly. “I was married twice, how many was it for you Bob, three times? Yeah, if you can stay married to one woman for ten years in this business, either you’re not working hard enough, or you have one hell of an understanding woman.”

  “Or a woman who can’t wait for you to hit the road, so that she can step out on you,” said Bob Bullard, who was now sitting on the couch channel surfing with the sound muted on the big screen TV. They were still showing replays of the football fans going over the railings, and showing survivors in hospitals, and more funerals than anyone could keep up with. Unlike in the aftermath of 9-11, the bodies of the Stadium Massacre victims were all very much available for funerals and burials.

  “Yeah, well, maybe. Anyway Wally, I can’t push it, I’ve got what I got and I don’t want to lose it.”

  Malvone walked with Silvari out through the back door, around the house and up the path to his car. “Joe, I gave Castillo my proposal to activate the STU and turn it into the Special Projects Division today. You know he’s by the book, so he won’t go for it, but he’ll pass it on up to Boxell. Wilson’s already got a copy; he’s just waiting for it to come through channels.” David Boxell was the Director of the BATFE; Paul Wilson was the Deputy Attorney General. “Boxell’s a dip shit, but he’ll see which way the wind is blowing and go along. Wilson’s already in our pocket, he’s going to be our pitchman to the Attorney General and the President.”

  “Is Wilson still banging that little senorita in the hot tub?” asked Silvari.

  “I guess so. I think she’s still at his place. Who’d have ever guessed that an old goat like Wilson would go for a teenage taco like her?”

  “Did Wilson’s wife ever find out?”

  “No, and she won’t as long as he does his part,” said Malvone.

  “You sent him a copy of the video tape?”

  “Damn right. It’s my favorite movie; I’ve only watched it about a hundred times.”

  “Yeah Wally, that was a nice morning’s work.”

  The STU had its own single-engine Piper Lance, and had obtained a BigEye surveillance pod for it. The BigEye was a stabilized combination video camera for daytime use, and infrared camera for night use. An operator up in the plane could put the camera’s cursor mark on a stationary or moving ground target and the camera would lock on to it even as the plane circled high above, out of sight and sound of its quarry.

  The extensive use of light planes was a tradition in the ATF going back decades; from the time when the “revenue agents” had flown them to spot bootleg liquor stills from the air. These pilot-qualified agents bragged that for them ATF stood for ‘agents that fly.’ The numerous flying special agents and ATF light planes often permitted them to reach the scenes of federal crimes involving illegal firearms or explosives before any other agencies. Any one-horse Podunk town with a dirt landing strip nearby could usually have ATF agents on the ground in a few hours at most. The ATF was independently air-mobile to a greater degree than most other agencies at the light plane end of the aviation spectrum.

  After a brief familiarization period with the BigEye Malvone gave his air team the addresses of a dozen senior government officials who were in a position to help the STU. They hit pay dirt on a Sunday morning in June when the Piper was flying lazy eights over Fairfax County Virginia, and they noticed activity at the estate of Deputy Attorney General Paul Wilson. A Mercedes arrived with a young couple who turned out to be Wilson’s daughter and son-in-law. Mrs. Wilson then left with them to attend church services.

  Soon after the driveway’s automatic gate closed behind the Mercedes, Paul Wilson had appeared in a bathrobe on the back patio of the mansion by the swimming pool, accompanied by someone else. The stabilized zoom lens of the BigEye then recorded in intimate detail the white-haired federal official and a black-haired girl playing in the Jacuzzi, with no detail left to the imagination for the next fifteen minutes. Upon further investigation the girl had turned out to be the 16 year old daughter of the Wilson’s Costa Rican housekeeper, who had taken the day off.

  Malvone was smiling broadly at the memory. “As soon as I saw that tape I knew we’d own Wilson, we’d have him in our pocket. When the time comes he’s going to go to
bat for us, big time, and we’ll get the Special Projects Division approved.”

  “The FBI’s going to fight it. They’ll never let ATF have a new division with that much power.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong Joe, the STU or SPD or what ever we end up calling it is going to be seen as a dirty outfit for dirty jobs, and the FBI won’t want any part of it. If the SPD falls on its face, the stink won’t rub off on them. They’ll be glad to let the ATF have it, and let the ATF take the hit if things go wrong. By the time they figure out what’s really going on, the Special Projects Division will be too big for them to stop.”

  Silvari said, “Yeah, that’s one of the things I love about this the most: sticking it to the FBI. For once the ATF is out in front.”

  “When I got that jerkoff Boxell to authorize the STU, he never dreamed what kind of ‘Special Training’ we’d be doing. And once we got Wilson’s ‘nanny problem’ on video tape I knew I’d be able to push the SPD through, it was just a matter of time. And you know what? I’ve got a feeling it’s going to finally happen this week.”

  “And all because of Shifflett.”

  “Yep, all because of Shifflett. I guess there really is a silver lining in every dark cloud. Sometimes good things even come out of tragedies. Take it easy Joe, see you Monday.”

  “See you Monday.”

  ****

  Malvone went back into his house through the front door on the first floor, then into his kitchen and down the stairs to the basement club room. Bob Bullard had switched from beer to Wild Turkey, and held out another smoke-colored glass for his boss. Malvone sipped it, but he was more of a scotch drinker himself, when he wasn’t having a martini. He went over to his stereo and turned the volume up on a twangy country music station. Silvari had swept the basement for bugs earlier, demonstrating some new gadgets for the other STU leaders, but Malvone and Bullard were old school and still liked to crank up the music before having a sensitive private conversation.