Enemies Foreign And Domestic

by Matthew Bracken

  Malvone had carefully compartmentalized knowledge of the STU Team’s extra-legal “proactive” measures. Bullard knew, of course, about the bomb he had placed under Mark Denton’s jeep, but not the truth behind the gun store arsons, or the mosque attack. Hammet knew about them, of course, but not the Denton car bomb. They all believed that Burgess Edmonds really was a dangerous militia paymaster, and that they had merely helped to clinch the case (in the media) by salting his house with some illegal weapons seized from actual militia kooks. Only Hammet knew the benign truth about the rod and gun club, but he wasn’t an actual member of the STU.

  So, the most damaging facts were mostly contained and insulated. But to Wally Malvone, there was still one gaping internal security threat, one open window to board up and nail shut permanently. After doing a walk-through of the hangars and speaking informally to the troops, and attending the initial Swarovski mission briefing in the classroom trailer, Malvone took Bob Bullard aside in a corner of the trailer hangar. He spoke quietly, regretfully.

  “Listen, Bob, we’ve got a serious problem.”

  “Huh? What problem Wally?”

  “We’ve got a rat, an informant.”

  “What? Bullshit! You’re bullshitting, right? Is this a test? Are you serious?”

  “I’m dead serious.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s…it’s George Hammet. He’s been contacting the Justice Department behind our backs, talking to the Solicitor General’s office…I suppose he thinks he’s buying himself some immunity, he’s been telling them about some of our…tactics. I guess he thinks if this blows up in our faces, he’ll be the first in line to get a deal. Lucky for us, the U.S. Attorney he approached is somebody I personally know, and he got right back to me to warn me about what Hammet’s doing. But that kind of luck can’t last; my friend stalled him for now, but sooner or later Hammet’s going to go somewhere else with his story and burn us.”

  “Shit! I can’t believe it! That Goddamned bastard—I’ll kill him myself!”

  “Yeah Bob, I know how you feel, I feel the same way, but here’s my idea. I gave him a special mission tonight; he’s going to ‘Vince Foster’ Edmonds in his Mercedes and roll it into a lake. Hammet’s already got the place scoped out; it’s in the Great Dismal Swamp. He just needs somebody to drive him back here afterwards, so pick one of the support techs who are staying back here tonight while the teams drive to Richmond. Pick one of the techs who can handle wet work, explain it like I explained it to you: Hammet’s a rat; he’s going to a U.S. Attorney behind our backs. Choose somebody who’s got the stones to take care of an informant.”

  “Wally, I already know who. Garfield.”

  “Perfect.”

  Clay Garfield was a good old boy from the hills of eastern Tennessee who’d been an operator with the ATF’s Special Response Team, until one of his teammates accidentally put a 9mm bullet practically through his left knee during close-quarters-battle training. After many surgeries and a pile of stainless steel and plastic later, Garfield was still unable to return to unrestricted duty. He could have gone before a medical board and retired early with a partial disability, but Garfield wanted to remain an operator and finish his twenty years with ATF. Malvone had found the burly no-neck hillbilly gimping around the new ATF Headquarters in Washington shuffling paperwork on limited duty. He’d seen the fire in his eyes and offered him a chance to get back into the field on operations, even in a limited capacity, with the most hardcore bunch of operators the ATF had ever assembled in one place. Garfield had eagerly accepted the offer.

  Knee brace or no knee brace, Garfield was still a tough and ruthless bastard who could bench almost 400 pounds, and while he was smart enough, he wasn’t too smart. Malvone had taken him into the STU officially as assistant unit armorer, in charge of their weapons, but he was versatile enough to help the commo techs and computer geeks in the Winnebago, while the tactical teams were out on operations.

  But the real reason that Malvone and Bullard liked having Garfield on the team was that he was an utterly loyal hard ass whose mere presence with the sometimes flaky support pukes kept them focused and assured their reliability. The support guys all liked him well enough, but they were also afraid of the hard-drinking and profane Clay Garfield. When he jokingly threatened to rip their arms off and beat them to death with them, the techs did not completely dismiss the possibility out of hand. Clay Garfield was capable of doing it, or so they believed.

  Bullard said, “I’ll tell Clay to come over and help Hammet with the Fallon interrogation after Blue and Gold leave for Richmond, and I’ll tell Hammet that Clay’s going to bring him back after he dumps Edmonds in the lake. But I’ll tell Clay to put them both in the lake. He can make it look like Edmonds and Hammet had a struggle for the gun, something like that.”

  “That’s perfect, that’s it exactly. Do it like that. Then Garfield just drives back here alone and keeps his mouth shut, and Hammet goes missing but nobody notices for a few days. The Field Office thinks he’s here, we think he’s at the Field Office, and his wife’s used to him being out of touch in the field. That’ll hold up for a few days, and by then he’s gone from the face of the earth, and we don’t have any clue where he is. He’s not actually in the STU you know, there’s no paper connecting him to us…

  “Oh, and one more thing: tell Garfield to leave the car windows open a little.” Malvone held his thumb and index finger a few inches apart.

  “To let the air out?”

  “No, to let the crabs in. In a few days there’ll be nothing left but bones in the car.”

  ****

  Wally Malvone left for Washington a greatly relieved man. The one wild card left in his deck, the one gaping security threat, was going to be permanently eliminated. While most of the members of the STU Team had certain pieces of guilty knowledge concerning illegal unit activities, they all believed that they were fighting for the worthy cause of crushing right wing terrorism. They all saw themselves as soldiers in the war against domestic terrorism, and they were all firm believers that there were no rules in war except to win, and that included using unconventional and extra-legal methods. They all believed that this latest front in the war against terrorism had been opened up by militia crazies at the stadium with the massacre of 1,200 innocent football fans, and that the militias deserved no respect, legal considerations, or mercy.

  But only George Hammet had been with Malvone and Shifflett up in Landover Maryland two long weeks before. Only Malvone and Hammet knew for a fact that the Stadium Massacre was a contrived operation, and only Malvone and Hammet knew who had pulled the trigger of that infamous SKS rifle ninety times...

  Wally Malvone was a firm believer in the adage that two people could keep a secret, but only if one of them was dead. Before the sun rose again, the primary source of his anxiety would be gone forever, keeping the secret at the bottom of a black water lake.

  38

  Phil Carson stabbed his cigarette into the truck’s ashtray. He considered flicking the butt out the open window, but today, at least for now, he was scrupulously obeying every law. He’d had to remove a pile of coins from the ashtray to use it for his first cigarette butt, which he had taken from the first pack he had bought in more than a decade. He was parked as close as he could get to the pay telephone, which was bolted to the brick wall on the side of a stand-alone Quick N’ Go store in Suffolk. After making several phone calls, he had gone into the store to get an Icee-Slush and some beef jerky, and found himself asking the cashier for a pack of Marlboros as if someone else was in command of his voice.

  He had the truck radio turned off while he listened for the phone to ring; he checked his watch compulsively as the minutes dragged past. Since Ranya’s desperate call for help, he had been using a series of pay phones as he drove across Tidewater. To his thinking, his own cell phone was suddenly less than trustworthy for general use of a conspiratorial nature, and he wanted to keep it clear for Ranya’s next emergency call. H
e thought, how long should I wait here? How much do I need the help that this particular call could bring? This was an important call, but time was fleeting and there was so much to do. He lit another cigarette.

  The smoke flowed all the way through him, not only into his lungs but down to his fingers and toes, calming him somewhat. He had smoked for most of his adult life, and many of his wartime memories were tinged in the remembered aroma of cigarette tobacco. Of course, he had never smoked when stealth was required, but between patrols and after some fire-fights he had smoked with great appreciation. Now, decades later, on an afternoon when he was unexpectedly planning one more combat patrol, he found himself enjoying the strong Virginia tobacco once again.

  Just as they had in Vietnam, long-term health considerations faded into utter meaninglessness on a day when he had been loading bullets into magazines and preparing weapons to shoot at men who were undoubtedly well-trained and well-armed. While pushing the slick copper and brass cartridges into their magazines, he had somehow felt the spectral presence of phantom soldiers, so real that it took an effort of his will not to look over his shoulders for them. Some, he thought, were still living and many, he knew, were long dead, but in his mind’s eye they were once again happy-go-lucky twenty-year-olds in jungle fatigues. An hour later, waiting in his pickup truck outside the Quick N’ Go, the mere lighting of a cigarette was sufficient to trigger another rush of Asian memories, and faces he had not seen in decades floated up through his consciousness.

  The phone outside the store trilled urgently. Carson was out of the truck and had the black receiver to his ear before the end of the second ring.

  ****

  Brad awakened slowly, lying on his back next to the ocean. The midday sun above him burned against his eyes, and he blinked weakly. He must have been pulled from the water; lifeguards and other bystanders seemed to be trying to revive him. Their faces above him slid in and out of focus, sometimes blocking the glare of the sun, then moving aside so that he was again hit with its direct rays. He grew weak once again and his eyes fluttered closed. Hollow voices swelled and faded like the waves rolling under the dock beneath his back.

  “…a little too much…”

  “…not now, tomorrow…no marks…”

  “…pulse hit two-hundred, did you see…”

  Brad’s random half-thoughts came trickling back together to form an awareness of his situation, and an urgent voice whispered to him from some alert corner of his subconscious that he should not wake up completely, not yet. He understood now that the men standing over him were not lifeguards or paramedics, that he was not lying on a dock by the ocean, and the blinding light above him was not the sun.

  “We have to go do Swarovski tonight. Get what you can out of Fallon, but for God’s sake don’t kill him, and don’t mark him up too much. Put some rags or something under the ropes; he can’t be found with marks like that for God’s sake! Use your head.”

  Brad began to remember where he was. He slowly eased his hands away from his sides and felt the ropes that tied him down to the door. Even in his semi-conscious state he knew that there was nothing to be gained by revealing to his tormentors that he was coming back around, and was, therefore, ready for more water on his face and electric shocks on his body.

  “The information is secondary, all right? No marks, and don’t kill him. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “I’ll send Garfield down to relieve you by then. We’ll be back after Swarovski. Then we’ll finish up with these two, but they gotta look good.”

  “Okay, I got it, don’t worry.”

  Brad drifted away again. Now he was lying on his back on a raft. Somehow he had drifted through the surf zone to the calmer sea beyond the waves, but the noontime sun was still burning through his closed eyelids.

  ****

  Dusk spread evenly across Tidewater under a leaden sky; the sun scarcely hinted its setting direction through the thick overcast. Ranya had found a hiding place in a disused tobacco drying shed on the edge of the tree line, where she could observe the eastern gate of the base. Her Yamaha was in the shed with her; after the close passage of their helicopter she was taking no chances on being spotted from above.

  The rusted tin roof of the shed seemed tight enough, so if it rained at least she would not be left soaking wet once again. The air was still fairly warm, but with the end of daylight she knew the serious cold would soon come. The walls of the drying shed were built of weathered horizontal wood slats with space between them for air flow, and the breeze passed through unhindered. She was sitting on a grimy tobacco sorting table with her knees drawn up to her chest, watching the gate, when she heard the airplane engine again.

  The sound of the engine grew steadily louder, she slid off the table and looked between the slats to the west and saw the small plane flying towards her below the cloud ceiling. It descended almost to treetop level, but before it reached her field, it pulled up and banked sharply over the chain link fence, turned to the north, and made a tight circle above the hangars. It was a long sleek single-engine plane with retracted landing gear, wings mounted low on the fuselage and a high tail in the shape of a capital letter T. It had some kind of round pod fixed under its otherwise smooth belly, probably a surveillance package, she thought.

  After circling the southern part of the base, it lowered its wheels, leveled out flying toward the north, and dropped from her sight. She thought it must be their own airplane; she had heard one taking off earlier. It was probably out taking pictures of their next target. This could be a good sign, if it indicated that the group was still active, and might be sending its gunmen out tonight. She felt guilty, because while this was good for her, it was certainly not going to be good for their next victims…

  The shed smelled of wet dirt, mold, rat droppings and old tobacco. In the fading light, Ranya examined the maps and sketches she had drawn in pencil on the backs of the pages of a girly-picture calendar from 1977, before she was born. Phil Carson had asked her for maps, and the calendar was the only paper she could find to draw upon. She had found it on a shelf beneath the sorting table; it was partially chewed by rats or mice. Skimpily-clad smiling girly models, spilling out of too-tight halter tops and short-shorts, held up air filters, fan belts and other very un-sexy truck and tractor parts.

  The backs of the calendar pages were blank, and on one she had drawn a map of the hangar area, and on another the entire base with all of the roads and trails around it. She also drew a map showing her infiltration route, and a sketch of what the hangar area had looked like as seen from her previous hiding place across the tarmac. All of the maps and sketches were marked with estimated sizes and distances, with each structure labeled, and the compass directions indicated.

  It was almost six and the light would not last much longer because of the heavy cloud cover. Phil had promised that he would call as soon as he was ready; she replayed their conversation over and over in her head, trying to extract every crumb of meaning. If he didn’t call back very soon, she would have to decide if she was going to continue waiting, or leave the shed to go to her father’s arms cache and get the carbine.

  The cache was twenty miles away on the other side of the Great Dismal Swamp, and it would take her at least an hour and a half to get there, find it again in the dark, and return. If she broke the short-barreled collapsible-stock AR-15 down into its two component parts, she could just fit it into her daypack for carrying on the motorcycle. She would have to take her chances with any FIST checkpoints.

  Once she left her observation post in the shed, she wouldn’t be able to know if the killer squads had left the base or not. She would have to assume they were all still there on the base, all around Brad. Even if she infiltrated from the south this time, from behind the hangars, it was unlikely that she would be able to slip in, find Brad and escape without firing a shot. If she had to shoot her way in or out, their prospects would be nearly hopeless. But she had put Brad into the horrible position he wa
s now in, and she would not abandon him. She could not live with herself afterwards if she did that.

  Phil Carson will call, she thought. I’ll stay and wait for him to call. She didn’t want to use her prepaid cell phone this close to their base, because she didn’t know what kind of capability they had to scan and locate nearby cell calls. The forest of antennas on top of their long motor home had warned her to be disciplined and not use the prepaid cell phone unnecessarily. She climbed back on the table, wrapped her arms around her knees again, and tried to stay warm by thinking about sailing and swimming with Brad on Guajira, but when she pictured his face, she could only think about what might be happening to him, a half mile away in the buildings next to the hangars…

  ****

  Phil Carson parked down the street from the Last Chance Saloon in the Township of Great Bridge, ten miles north of the old Navy landing field. He had been using his local knowledge to travel from Suffolk into Chesapeake County entirely on secondary roads. He was avoiding the highways and major surface streets, because the tool carrier behind the cab of his pickup truck was loaded with enough prohibited weaponry to send him to prison for life. They were hidden beneath an ample covering of power tools and work clothes, but he realized that any serious search would discover them.

  The Last Chance was a place that he was familiar with. It was an enduring local landmark that was always popular with the riders of American motorcycles, but he had only rarely been there in the past couple of years since he had mostly stopped drinking. He was wearing boots, black denim jeans and a black leather riding jacket, so that he would not stand out among the patrons. His leather jacket was patch-free. He rode with no organized club, and he had never believed in advertising his life history on his outerwear.