Enemies Foreign And Domestic

by Matthew Bracken

  A dozen Harleys and a few Triumphs were parked on the street outside the “Wild West” style wooden double-doors. He walked through the dimly-lit bar area, passed the high-backed booths, the pool tables and the kitchen storage area and continued all the way to the back door. Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” was playing on the jukebox. Carson wondered how many copies of the record had been worn out and replaced in this bar over the last three decades. It must have been a considerable number, before finally being replaced by a CD and then a computer chip. Nobody paid the least bit of attention to his passage; it was a place where people minded their own damn business unless they were provoked, and direct eye contact between strangers was not advisable.

  He cracked open the back door and peered up and down the wide concrete alley. The white SUV which his old friend had described was parked on the other side and down a little bit, along the back wall behind a supermarket. The driver’s window was open; his friend was sitting alone, hunched low behind the wheel. There were no other occupied vehicles in sight; no vans, no bums or derelicts keeping watch. He backtracked through the bar, and then drove his green Chevy truck around to the alley and slowly passed the SUV. The men nodded to each other, and Carson parked behind him, back bumper almost to back bumper. They both got out and shook hands between the vehicles. His friend was wearing jeans and a dark blue rain shell with the hood pulled up, even though it was only beginning to drizzle lightly.

  Across from them, the back door to the bar was kicked open and both men flinched and cut their eyes toward the noise, but it was only a bartender carrying out a blue plastic recycling bin. The sound of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song followed him through the open door. The bartender walked out into the alley and casually heaved a load of empty beer bottles into the bar’s trash dumpster, where they landed with a clatter of breaking glass.

  “Bad Moon Rising,” said Jasper Mosby, relaxing a bit after their alarm. “That song always brings back memories. Somebody in my platoon had that record; we always played it when we were loading up. Every time I hear it, I still think about getting ready for a patrol. That song used to help us get psyched up, make us feel dangerous. You know, it’s funny, the things you remember.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Carson. “Some songs put me right back in country every time I hear them.” He laughed. “You know, we might just be in for nasty weather, but there’s no moon rising tonight. It’s only a crescent moon, and it’s setting at 9 o’clock, I checked. I couldn’t ask for better conditions; with the clouds it’s going to be as dark as a coal mine, and nice and quiet with the rain.”

  The two men locked gazes, saw their creased faces and receding gray hairlines, and they both thought, do I look that ancient?

  The off-duty Suffolk police lieutenant said, “Now look at us, two old bastards sneaking around in an alley behind a bar.”

  “Well Jasper, we sure won’t be able to say we weren’t old enough to know better.”

  It was Mosby’s turn to laugh. “Yeah Phil, there’s no fool like an old fool. Well, anyway, let me show you what I’ve got.” He popped the doors open on the back of his white Expedition. Inside were two suitcase-sized black nylon gear bags and a very full green canvas parachute bag.

  “We don’t need to go through it all here Jasper; I know what to do with it. I’ll get it back to you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, um, well…here’s the thing, Phil. Most of this stuff is marked up with serial numbers. It’s almost all inventory controlled. If anything goes missing, well, I’ll be screwed and that’s the truth.”

  “Listen, Jasper, I really appreciate what you’re doing, we…”

  “That’s not it, Phil. That’s not it at all. Since you called, I’ve been thinking about everything… You’re welcome to use this stuff, but… on one condition. Only if I come with it. I mean, if I don’t get it all back, I might as well not come back either. I talked it over with Liddy, and she’s for it, all the way. No matter what. And even more important than that, I’m just not going to let you and Ranya go in there by yourselves.” Mosby looked down at his feet.

  Carson knew that Jasper Mosby stood to lose all of his pension and benefits if he went on tonight’s rescue mission and it turned out badly, even if he wasn’t killed, wounded, or arrested outright. It was a hell of a risk for a man at retirement age.

  “And one more thing, Phil, and it’s non-negotiable. I didn’t come alone. Some of the gear…well, I had to borrow it from our SWAT team, and I had to do a little song and dance for it. Anyway, I wound up getting us another volunteer. His name’s Frank.” Mosby slightly raised his hand in a signal. “I knew you’d spook if you saw two of us, so I had him wait around the corner. You’ve just got to believe me on this, but Frank’s somebody I’d trust my life to.”

  A solidly-built thirtyish man of average height, with dark hair and a moustache, appeared down the alley and walked briskly toward them. Carson stared in disbelief, and quickly looked over his shoulder the other way down the alley for any more surprises. How had he missed spotting this guy before the meeting? Was this all a set up? No, no way. Jasper wouldn’t do it. No way in hell. But if he had missed this guy, what else was he missing? Was he still sharp enough? Had he been out of the game too long? Were his observational senses and instincts no longer up to the challenges he would be facing?

  The guy was wearing black BDU-style fatigue pants and only a black t-shirt even in the cool drizzle. The shoulders and biceps of a body builder strained against the fabric, the hallmark of every serious SWAT cop. Just before they shook hands, Carson noted that he wore no wedding band.

  “Phil, I’m glad to meet you. My name’s Frank Santander, I’m a Sergeant with the Suffolk PD, and I’m a member of our special response team.” Santander locked his gaze directly onto Carson’s eyes while they gripped each others hands.

  “Lieutenant Mosby said that we should just go by first names tonight, but…I’m sorry, Jasper, but that’s just not my style. When he came to me for some gear this afternoon, I made him tell me what he wanted it for. You see, we’ve had some long talks, Jasper and me, about what’s been going on lately. We think about the same way on it, and well, anyway, here I am.

  “You know, sir, my family’s all from Colombia, and most of my relatives are still down there. But I’ve been here since I was a kid, and I’m just plain American all the way. Look, I know I’m not in the league with you two, I mean, I heard some stories about you, Mr. Carson, at the VFW… Anyhow, after the Army, I joined the Suffolk Police, because I really care about people. I want to help them, protect them. I know that sounds corny, but I swear to God it’s the truth. Am I making any sense?

  “Anyway, here’s what it is, here’s why I’m here; I just can’t stand watching America turning into a big Colombia. I’ve been there, I’ve spent time down there, and what’s been going on lately, it ain’t right, it just ain’t American.

  “When Jasper, I mean Lieutenant Mosby, when he told me what you found going on down in Chesapeake, and how it’s the same gang that did the arsons and killed the Edmonds family and everything, well, I mean, connect the dots, right? It all connects right straight back to the Stadium Massacre, doesn’t it? I mean, I never bought the Shifflett story, not for a minute. When he said what you were planning, and how he was going with you, well, I told him I was coming too, or no gear. And so here I am.”

  Carson was choked up, but swallowed the lump in his throat. Leaders couldn’t show that kind of human frailty. He was grateful for the light rain falling on his face. “You know who’s there? You know what we’ll be up against?”

  “I know. Pros. A professional death squad. Secret police, like in Colombia or Brazil. People who burn families to death, just to make a point.”

  “Frank, you understand that they’re probably some kind of sworn federal law enforcement agents? I really doubt that they’re civilians. Can you…deal with that?”

  “Can I shoot a cop, you mean? A ‘brother officer’? Mr. Carson, these
aren’t cops anymore, these are death-squad killers. They’re just Nazis, like the Gestapo, and they shame and dishonor every honest cop in America. Hell yes, I can shoot them, if I have to. No question. But the primary mission tonight is a rescue operation, and collecting video evidence, right?”

  “That’s exactly right.”

  “Well, let’s go do it then.”

  Carson shook his hand again. “Welcome aboard, Frank Santander. But some of the people you’re going to meet tonight can’t use their real names. Let me do all the introductions, and only use the names I use. Is that cool?”

  “That’s cool, I understand. It’s better security. But I wanted you to know who I am, right up front. That’s just the way I am.”

  “Okay then, let’s roll.” Phil Carson knew that taking Mosby along was a huge risk, and bringing the stranger even more so. From his previous life, his life after the Army, after Vietnam, he knew all too well that the unexpected strap-hanger was often a Judas, sent to betray. But he had already come too far, and aborting the mission out of a desire for self preservation was simply not an option. Not with Ranya waiting for him, not with Ranya going in alone if he didn’t show up. He would just have to accept the risk that he was being set up. After all, it was a night for taking chances; it was a night for not holding anything back.

  ****

  On his return flight to Washington, Malvone’s borrowed helicopter crossed the Potomac just to the east of the Dahlgren Naval Proving Grounds, where the miles-wide river tended north, and then made a giant dog-leg turn back to the southwest. This was where the high Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge crossed the Potomac, carrying Route 301 from Virginia into Maryland. With the Wilson Bridge on the DC beltway severed, the 301 bridge was carrying double its normal traffic. There was no other bridge over the mighty Potomac River between Washington and the Chesapeake Bay.

  For the return flight, Malvone chose to ride in the empty right front seat; the helicopter only had one set of controls. From their altitude of 2,000 feet, just below the cloud ceiling, the bridge looked like an elaborate Erector Set model, with toy 18 wheelers laboring up one steep slope and sliding down the other. The toll plaza on the Maryland side was now doubling as an enormous “FIST” checkpoint, almost like an international border crossing, and traffic was backed up the bridge toward the Virginia side.

  Malvone immediately felt more comfortable on the Maryland side of the river. Compared to the anachronistic gun-toting Virginians, Marylanders were by comparison a much tamer breed. Decades of progressive Democratic Party rule had long since seen all firearms registered, and whenever possible, taken away from ordinary citizens. After the “Beltway Sniper” case in 2002, Maryland had cracked down even harder on gun owners, and after the Stadium Massacre the semi-automatic rifle turn-in had proceeded smoothly, since all of these weapons had already been thoroughly catalogued by the State Police.

  Malvone’s pilot was flying by the “3-R” method: roads, rails and rivers, and once they were over Maryland, he tracked to the north above Route 301 at an air speed of 120 miles per hour. Before taking off, Malvone had asked the pilot to make a slight detour on their way back to Washington, and the pilot had marked his air map with the new mid-point destination and plotted a waypoint on the GPS navigation system.

  The now operational (and soon to be expanding) Special Training Unit needed its own headquarters and base, away from Washington and away from Quantico. “Mr. Emerson,” his White House-provided black-budget and proprietary front company expert, had come up with a short list of potential sites, and among them, the West Waldorf Industrial Park seemed to Malvone to be the most promising. Its location was excellent, twenty road miles south of DC, and twenty-five miles north of Virginia across the 301 bridge. Best of all, it was only ten miles from Malvone’s own home on Tanaccaway Creek.

  Even though the site was just twenty air miles east of Quantico, Virginia across the Potomac, it was sixty long, slow road miles away via Fredericksburg Virginia over the Route 301 bridge. This would effectively divorce the STU from close federal law enforcement control, another of Malvone’s goals. With the Wilson Bridge cut, the FBI at Quantico found itself on the “wrong” side of the river, forced to battle their way into Washington on the jammed alternate routes, while the STU Team leaders would be able to pop in and out from the Maryland side at will.

  Beyond the University of Maryland’s college town of La Plata, Route 301 veered to the northeast, but the pilot continued straight on cross country, counting down the miles on his electronic GPS map display. Three minutes later they were over an empty office and industrial park, and Malvone circled his left index finger to indicate that the pilot should orbit. The pilot pushed his yoke into a right bank to give his government supergrade passenger the best view.

  As they circled, Malvone mentally inventoried the ten acres of empty warehouses, offices, workshops, parking lots and multi-use buildings, which were all surrounded by a chain link fence. Beyond the fence, the place was bordered by fields of corn and asparagus and beans.

  The industrial park had been finished two years earlier, but it had yet to welcome its first tenant. Final leasing plans had been halted in their tracks when government biologists from the nearby Mattawoman Natural Environment Area had made a dramatic discovery: the local Eastern Golden-backed Sand Gnats comprised a distinct and extremely rare species. They were immediately placed under federal protection as an endangered species. The federal biologists next made the rapid determination that industrial activity and lighting in the area would hinder the mating activity of the rare gnat, and project completion was halted by a court order. The private developers of the West Waldorf Industrial Park went to court, and then into bankruptcy.

  Now, two years later, the new owners of the property were about to catch a break at last. Vital national security concerns would outweigh the value of the rare gnats, and Uncle Sam (suitably sheep-dipped as a private corporation) would be moving in as the sole tenant. The Special Training Unit was going to have its own home.

  But even then Malvone knew that it was time for the STU to shed its original name. Washington bureaucrats he had never even met were tossing off the initials far too freely; it was only a matter of time before the existence of the STU would be mentioned in some magazine article or website. Perhaps the STU would next become the Special Projects Division, or the Firearms Research Group. It didn’t matter, as long as the title was suitably vague, and it had three initials.

  And in a few months or a year, that new unit name would also be on the lips of bureaucrats and a few well-connected reporters, and then that name would also disappear down the bureaucratic memory-hole in turn. It was a truism in Washington that any elite covert unit really worth a damn rated a classified name, mission, and base. The West Waldorf Industrial Park could hold their rapidly expanding personnel, and all of their vehicles and equipment. It could handle helicopters, it could handle indoor firing ranges, it could handle anything. He indicated to the pilot that he was finished studying the park, and the helicopter continued on to the north.

  ****

  By 7:30 PM it was fully dark, and light rain was falling silently on the fields and trees around the auxiliary landing field. The damp coldness was seeping into Ranya’s core. She alternated between sitting on the sorting table and stretching and exercising in place inside the shed to keep warm and alert, all the while watching the area around the chain link gate for even subtle signs of activity. She feared that if any of the killers left tonight, they might drive away without turning on their headlights, using the night vision goggles which she guessed that they had.

  But when the federal convoy finally pulled up to the gate at 7:35 PM, there was no mistaking the multiple sets of headlights burning on the other side of the fence. The gate was pushed open, and the column rolled through it and passed Ranya only a hundred yards from her tobacco shed. She mused that if she had only had a belt-fed machine gun, she could have easily raked them with devastating fire in the open
field as they approached the cut where the road passed through the tree line.

  There were four large dark SUVs, presumably two were the same black Suburbans that she had seen at Boat America. The four SUVs were trailed by a full-sized van. Once they were gone, she punched Phil Carson’s number into her throwaway cell phone. If there were five or six men per vehicle, that could make twenty-five or thirty jackbooted thugs out for a night of arson and murder. Even if there were only three men per vehicle, the number of killers on the base would be reduced by fifteen.

  Phil Carson picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “It’s me, they just left. Five big ones.”

  “Okay, that’s great. Really great. We’re here. You know where the place is? You’re sure you can find it at night?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right, come on then.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  39

  The Wagon Wheel was a former restaurant and country music dance hall which had missed the end of the line-dancing craze of the early 1990s. It was built like a barn mated to a warehouse. Part of it had been burned, and much of the rest was covered in graffiti. The restaurant windows that were not boarded up with sheets of plywood had long ago been shot out for casual target practice, as was the marquee sign out front on the road. There was little risk to the vandals that they would be bothered by police, because the Wagon Wheel was located on South River Road, which had lost its significance when the four-lane Route 158 had been opened five miles to the west.

  It was set well back from the road across an acre of overgrown and rutted gravel parking lot, still waiting for the legions of Texas Two-Steppers who had never discovered the place. Ranya paused on the shoulder and swept it with her headlight beam, before she proceeded slowly around the right side of the barn-shaped restaurant to the back. No other headlights were visible on South River Road in either direction.