“We just need to recognize and accept our differences, organize, put together the final plan, and execute that plan. I expect various groups to start solidifying in the coming months so that we’ll need a liaison in each city.“
The Philly contingent remained silent. It was obvious to them that these folks were much more organized and further along in the process than they.
Aaron was the next to speak. “I know I’m a young guy, but I’ve been a foot soldier out on the streets, rallying support, and finding out what was happening. While my dad is an obvious pacifist, I’ve been helping General Redmond put together a plan that we believe has a high probability of success. But I have to get this out on the table. This plan is not without risk, and I have some very real reservations about having Muslims play a part in this operation. There is the risk that these Khalid brothers are a part of a sting. There is a danger that we could all be found out, imprisoned, tried for treason, and executed. There is the risk of total failure where the government repels our actions with the result being mass causalities and no change. There is a risk of this happening. But I guess I’m willing to go along with Josh’s gut because I’m convinced that none of these is worse than the outcome of doing nothing.”
The applause was deafening. Angela, speaking for her group, said that they were on board and that she would bring the Philly group up to speed and on board as well.
Hearing that, Josh brought up Teleview, MicroTech Corp’s new 3D 9G video conferencing software on his computer. He dialed Qasim and Makim, who were waiting in Boston.
The brothers, expecting the call, answered on the first ring. Josh welcomed them and after a few introductions and pleasantries, they got down to business. Saul sat with his arms crossed, obviously not happy with these recent events but apparently willing to go along for now. Josh told the brothers that he’d like an update in a few minutes but that he wanted to fill them in first. The general finished telling the brothers about the Philly group agreeing to join forces and the New York group starting work on a final plan. Aaron then asked the group to vote for and elect General Josh Redmond as the supreme commander of the Nationalists, a term that from then on they alternately used with Patriots to describe those fighting for their freedom. The group approved Josh through acclimation. While seemingly a no-brainer, this was the most important decision these three groups would jointly make.
Josh thanked everyone and, after a very brief acceptance speech, told them that it was critical that no one discuss their goals, mission, or any sensitive information via text or email. He was confident that sooner or later, the president would order the NSA, CIA, and FBI to monitor those. He told everyone about his purchase of a secured phone from Intercontinental Cellular and would place an order for 15 more such phones so that from this moment forward, all communication, among the leaders of the groups, would be either by secured line or in person. He purposely held back telling them about his other secure phone and the Assembly of Nine. He was hell bent on people having only the information that they absolutely needed to do their jobs. All information, he told them, was to be on a “need to know” basis.”
What went unsaid was that Josh wanted to keep the minute details away from the religious among them. They served the purpose of community organizers and could muster a group of people who trusted them. But the less they knew about the details of what was being planned, the better.
He then asked Qasim for an update on their end. Qasim spoke in detail about what Makim had found out about a few Muslims in Boston who were meeting in private discussing what they could do about the current administration. He then briefed everyone about his meeting with Tarif and how important it was to have an ally on the inside.
Everyone listened intently before Josh spoke. “That’s an outstanding idea, Qasim, and it fits right in with our plans here. But are you sure that Tarif can be trusted?”
“No General. I’m not 100% sure but can we be 100% sure of anything? I just don’t see any other options that will give us eyes and ears inside the White House. I believe that Tarif can be a valuable asset. But I also think that we have to make sure that we always keep one very skeptical eye on him.”
“I understand,” said Josh. “Ok then. I guess the most pressing need at this point is to remove Omar, the White House chief of staff, from the equation so that Tarif can be promoted.” He asked if anyone had any ideas.
Saul was the first to speak. “From what I’ve seen in politics, everyone has some skeletons in the closet. I’d suggest finding out what Omar Khalid is hiding and then use that information to affect his departure either by forcing the president to replace him or by strongly suggesting that he resign.”
Muhammad ibn Ali, who had been unnervingly silent, spoke up. “I don’t know Omar personally but Qasim and I have spoken at length about him and, while he’s a terrible human being, there is nothing in his background that could be proven and of use to us in this sense. Do you agree with that Qasim?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve known Omar all of my life and lived with his family for years. On the one hand, he’s very sneaky and did things that I would not be proud of myself. But he’s not an entirely dishonest man or a criminal and, while not a good husband regarding how he treats his wife, he is at least faithful to her. He doesn’t drink, gamble, or frequent prostitutes. He works hard for his money and brings home a decent paycheck that he uses to take care of his wife. He even gives a lot of money to his mosque. We can look, but I don’t think we’ll find any skeletons in his closet. I don’t see any way to discredit or blackmail him.”
Nicky chimed in; “Are you suggesting that we whack him?”
“While I don’t like him, I’d much prefer to do something to trap him into some wrong doing. Then we can use that to have him fired from his job.”
Josh then told Qasim that he would like to talk to him the next day about some ideas on how to peacefully remove Abbas from office.
Chapter 33
Nicky hung around after the others had left because he wanted to speak to the general about his strategy. While the general spoke about entrapping Omar in a way that would force the president to remove him from his position, Nicky wasn’t buying it for a minute. He had street smarts, and a keen sense of what was happening and that sense told him that the nuances suggested in the meeting were not the general’s style.
“General, it doesn’t make any God damn sense to me that you would want to play some political bullshit game just to can someone from his job. I think that a more direct way would be better, ya know….and faster.”
“I was brought into this by Rabbi Saul. He’s a good friend of mine, and while I’m sure he knows on some level that things are likely to get ugly, he’s also a pacifist who doesn’t want to be a part of any violence. So while I’m working on a better plan, it helps our cause to have the Rabbi believe that his group is interested in some peaceful way out of this mess. Does that make sense to you?”
“Yeah but what’s the real plan?”
“We start by whacking Omar,” said the general bluntly.
They both laughed at the General’s use of a word that was more common to Nicky’s vernacular. “Fuckin’ A, I’m in. What can I do to help?”
“Nicky, I know several people who could do this but they are active duty Special Forces. We need someone good who is not in the military. Do you know anyone?”
Nicky nodded. “Does the Pope know any prayers, General?”
“Good. I thought you might. Don’t do anything yet. Poke around a little; feel some people out, and wait for my call.”
After Nicky left, Josh sat down to relax; relieved that he had someone to do some of the grunt work. He liked Nicky. To the general, he was like a good soldier who would follow him into battle no matter the danger involved. Oh sure he was rough around the edges at times. Yet Josh sensed that under his rough veneer was a smart, resourceful guy. Most important, though, he was confident that when Nicky said that he’d do something, he’d produce results. So far t
here had been few in the group ready to act, and that had to change.
Chapter 34
Most of his high school friends would describe Ronnie Tartaglione as a punk. He was slight of build and the kind of kid who instigated trouble and then ran away when things started to get out of hand. It wasn’t unusual for Ronnie to get into the middle of the fracas, help it escalate, and then sneak away while the remaining combatants ended up brawling.
In school, he was a smart ass and a class clown. He had an IQ of about 120, but while smart enough to get good grades, he never applied himself. He’d much rather be out playing football or basketball or even just chasing girls.
While attending the local Catholic high school, he was constantly in trouble. He was dismissed because of his poor grades, first from the football team and then the basketball team. Trouble seemed to follow him during his sophomore year and by the middle of the term, he was expelled for smoking pot on school grounds and painting graffiti on the outside walls. His parents enrolled him in a public high school, but he dropped out during his first semester there. He had just turned 16.
At a loss for what to do with their son, his parents asked his uncle if he would take him under his wing for a while. Uncle Larry and Aunt Betsy lived in the middle of farm country in Southern New Jersey. Uncle Larry ran an auto repair business, was a member of the NRA, and an avid hunter. Aunt Betsy stayed at home and baked and ran the household. Childless herself, she was thrilled to have her nephew to dote on.
It was there that Ronnie started to realize that his talents could not be tied to a classroom because he was more of a ‘hands on’ kind of guy. Under his uncle’s tutorage, he became quite the auto mechanic. More importantly to his future career, he became quite the hunter. His uncle taught him to shoot at a target range he had set up behind an old barn. Ronnie started by shooting cans with an old .22 long rifle and later progressed to shooting even smaller targets at even greater distances. Uncle Larry would brag to anyone who would listen that his nephew was the best marksman he’d ever seen.
Eventually, his uncle took him out hunting, first for small game like rabbits and then, during the season, deer that ran rampant across the area. For his 17th birthday, his aunt and uncle bought Ronnie the first really expensive present anyone had ever given him; a multi-load .308 Winchester with a scope and a box of Remington 125 grain reduced recoil loads. Once he got the hang of the rifle’s recoil, he switched to the heavier 165-grain bullet that provided greater killing power. Within a few months, Ronnie was shooting deer from 350 yards as if he had been born with a rifle in his hands.
One requirement that Aunt Betsy placed on him was the he had to accept homeschooling to complete the requirements for his GED. While not thrilled, Ronnie agreed and was much more motivated working one on one with his aunt than he had ever been in the classroom. And, he loved his reward for doing a good job; hunting trips with his uncle.
Once he passed his GED though, Ronnie realized that living in rural New Jersey was not what he wanted out of life. In fact, he had no idea what he wanted to do. So, he enlisted in the Army.
It wasn’t long before his TI’s, and CO recognized that Ronnie had real talent and recommended him to “MAST- Military Academy for Sniper Training.”
Ironically, the smart aleck goofball with a chip on his shoulder that Ronnie had been before he entered the service was replaced by a serious young man being groomed for a very serious job. Initially, Ronnie was assigned as one of the sharpshooters in an infantry squadron. The Army charged his squadron with taking out the most elusive but strategic enemy targets. The expert marksmen were tasked with killing the key military leaders in an attempt to disrupt the enemy chain of command and decision-making. He was never told “Ronnie you are now an assassin”, but as he was singled out for assignments, and as his targets became high profile leaders, that is exactly what Ronnie Tartaglione had become. And he was good at it. In fact, he was one of the best. By the time he was discharged, he was credited with 229 kills, the most ever by a US Sniper. The “credited” count is the score the government admitted to. The reality was that Ronnie had likely killed over a hundred more.
In the Army Ronnie found his passion; killing people. But once retired, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He had been trained as an auto mechanic and was a darn good one but between the changes in automotive technology and his lack of interest, that didn’t seem like a good option. He was smart but he didn’t want to use his GI Bill benefits for college. That just wasn’t for him. His wife, Tina, kept on him about finding a job, and he’d halfheartedly look at the on-line job postings, but there was never anything that interested him.
After a while, though, he just got frustrated and pissed off at Tina’s nagging, and he’d lash out at her. Eventually, she just accepted that he would never be a nine to five career guy like many she knew. So she stopped harping on him and let him do whatever he wanted to do while she went out to work. What Ronnie did mostly was wander the streets and chat up sports with anyone who would talk to him. A lot of people thought that he was a little odd so even finding someone to talk to was hard because let’s face it, how many people could relate to someone like Ronnie? Very few could understand the inner workings of a guy who killed people for a living for 20 years. He picked up odd jobs every now and then, but there were few employment opportunities for a guy like him. That’s why Ronnie was psyched when he got the call from his old war buddy about a possible job.
Chapter 35
Old man Giovanni liked to call his little establishment “Giovanni Ristorante” but looking around the room; Nicky Killer knew that it was just a friggin pizza joint with some table cloths on the tables. Putting a few pasta and parmesan entrees on the menu didn’t make Giovanni’s a swank restaurant. No, it was nothing fancy which is why he loved the place.
Today he thought he’d have a cheese steak with extra cheese and lots of fried onions. Nicky almost single-handedly contributed to Philly’s rep as the fattest city in America. He loved pasta, pizza, cheese steaks, hoagies, and Philly Pretzels. Coke too and not that diet crap, only the high octane stuff. If it was fattening, it was on Nicky’s diet.
As a young boy growing up on South Colorado Street, his mother used to try to get him to eat eggplant disguised as lasagna, but Nicky wasn’t having any of it. He wanted the real thing. “If you wanna change it up ma, put some sausage and extra cheese in it.”
All of which explained why he was a 46-year-old with a 46-inch waist to match. He had been a good-looking boy back in the day. After floundering around for a few years after high school, he enlisted in the Army at 23 and left South Philly to go overseas to fight the towel heads, his favorite nickname for the Taliban.
He was 5’11 and weighed about 160 pounds back then. His friends jokingly said he was in the infantry because he was too stupid to get out of the way of the enemy. In fact, it was during the third Iraq war while engaged in a firefight in neighboring Kuwait that Nicky, using a machine gun that was part of the Browning M1933 series, was credited with taking down over 50 enemy troops and two jeeps single-handedly. The talk started about Nicky the Enemy Killer, a nickname which was eventually shortened to Nicky Killer. That rep had served him well in life as most people were afraid of him because rumor had it that he was crazy. He didn’t think he was crazy but, to foster the myth; he’d say stuff like “Who am I to say? I ain’t no psychiatrist. Maybe I am a little nuts?”
While on a TDY at Camp Taji, near Bagdad, Nicky met a 20-year-old who was also from South Philly, Ronnie Tartaglione. Being stationed together made them both feel right at home and he and the kid, as he referred to Ronnie, hit it off right from the start. The big thing they had in common was that they both liked to kill the enemy. The only difference was that while Nicky loved killing hordes within minutes, Ronnie was a Special Forces sniper who enjoyed the hunt, even if his count was only one. “Quality is what it’s all about, not quantity,” Ronnie used to joke. His forte, and what made him perfect for the mission that N
icky had in mind for him, was killing high profile enemy military and heads of state.
When Nicky returned from the Army, he found that the old neighborhood had changed. Many of the Italians were long gone, replaced by Asians and blacks. His parents and many of their friends had moved to the Washington Township area in Southern NJ. Nicky bought a home and lived near his parents for a while, but after they died, he joined the resurgence in South Philly.
As their parents, who had moved to the burbs, got older and either died or had to be admitted to residential living facilities, their kids started to cash in on the appreciation of the houses that were selling for almost a half million dollars. They then began moving back into the city. Taxes were lower compared to the burbs with the average cost of a nice house being $200,000. So the old neighborhood, which had been run down and dilapidated, was a decent place to live. When Ronnie was discharged from the Army, he thought about selling the tiny row home to the developers and moving to the burbs, but Nicky convinced him to stay in South Philly near him. South Philly was once again becoming “a Little Italy.”
“Yo Nicky,” came the familiar voice as Ronnie entered Giovanni’s.
He stood to greet his friend as they usually did, “Yo Ronnie,” and they gave each other a brief bear hug.
“How ya been Nick?”
“Been doin’ great ya know, I have my days but other than that I’m doin’ ok. And what’s the use a complainin’. Don’t nobody listen anyway.”
“How’s Tina”
“Ah, ya know Teen. She never changes. She’s the same girl I met 25 years ago. We’ve been married for 17, ya know. ‘member, weren’t you at the wedding?
Nicky could never forget Tina. After she and Ronnie had been married a couple of years, Ronnie was away on an assignment. Being away was common, and his assignments were always overseas. Nicky was home on leave and attended a party thrown by a mutual friend, Sissy something or other. He spotted Tina from across the room. She looked gorgeous. She was about 5’5” and weighed about 115 lbs. She had shoulder length black hair and the most engaging smile. Nicky mentally undressed her, secretly wishing she were single. Don’t be a pig, he had thought to himself.
Acts of Sedition Page 14